Chapter Twenty-Six: The Legilimens’ Trick
The halls of Alsemore became cold and drafty as November turned to December. The trees around the dark castle, already bare, were coated with snow and often dropped piles of ice and dead leaves on unsuspecting students. That winter was the coldest the students had ever experienced at Alsemore. It became a common fashion for students to wear all three changes of sweaters and pants at once to keep warm.
Professor Breckenridge had ambushed Lottie four times in the hallways; she managed to block him fairly well, though faint echoes haunted the corners of her mind. Three times, Lottie heard her mother’s voice, slow and comforting. Pangs of homesickness overtook her, but she managed to retain her mind-shield the entire time. Once she thought she could feel him nonverbally trying to break through her defenses during one of his lectures. Andrea, on the other hand, had only been ambushed once, and failed miserably.
“You think the teachers can’t figure out a warming charm or something?” Lottie asked through a shiver on the way to one of their private lessons with Stainthorpe.
Andrea shrugged. “A castle like this would probably take a lot of magic to keep heated, I’d think,” she said. Her breath clouded in the steely air in front of her.
“Well I think it’d be a good investment,” Lottie said huffily. She stopped in front of Stainthorpe’s office door and eyed it warily. In their last session, Stainthorpe facilitated a diagnostic friendly duel between the two third years. Lottie had done fairly well in a shower of flashy wand work, but despite her best efforts, she wound up being defeated by Andrea’s well-timed disarming spell.
“Well, come on then,” Andrea said impatiently, pushing Lottie through the door.
Stainthorpe smiled as Lottie was flung unceremoniously into the classroom. “Good evening,” she said.
Lottie rubbed her back, muttering, “Evening.”
“Tonight, we’ll be doing something I should have taught you much earlier,” Stainthorpe said, pulling out her wand. “We’ll be mastering the shield charm.” Lottie opened her mouth to respond, but Stainthorpe put a hand up. “I know you have learned this in your Dueling class, but several of your shields have been rather unstable.”
Lottie scowled.
“So, Woolbright, send a jinx “ a fairly harmless one, please “ at Rowe. Rowe, you try and defend yourself.”
Lottie nodded at Andrea with a smirk. “You ready?” she asked as she whipped out her wand.
Andrea responded by waving her wand and shouting, “Tarentallegra!”
“Protego!”
Andrea’s jinx shot through Lottie’s shield. The light shattered like glass and hung in the air, shimmering and evanescent; she had to stop it from hitting her face with her forearm. The force of Andrea’s spell knocked her backwards, off of her feet and caused her to land violently against the base of Stainthopre’s desk. The curse shot down her limbs. Immediately, her legs began to do a sort of tap dance.
“Finite,” Stainthorpe chuckled.
Cheeks burning, Lottie pushed herself up. “It’s not fair,” she muttered, dejectedly slipping her wand into her pocket. “I wasn’t ready.”
“Well you have your chance to prove yourself,” Stainthorpe said airily.
“You bet.” Lottie flicked her wand at Andrea and shouted, “Petrificus Total””
“Protego!”
Andrea jabbed her wand, eyes screwed up with concentration. The spell bounced off of the shield and hit the leg of Stainthorpe’s desk, making it quiver precariously.
They practiced the spell for the entire lesson before Stainthorpe finally let them leave. Bruised and sore, Lottie hobbled down the corridor, leaning on Andrea for support. “You really don’t think you can walk?” Andrea groaned. Being considerably taller than her, Lottie understood why Andrea was complaining, but wasn’t about to forgive her for hexing her eight times in a row.
“No, I don’t think I can,” she said with a mischievous grin.
“Oh!” Andrea pushed Lottie’s arm off her shoulder with a playful glare. “You lying, horrible””
“Aw… the two bestest fwiends are fighting?” mused a mocking voice from down the hall.
Lottie’s head snapped up. “No,” she hissed under her breath.
“What?” Andrea asked, looking up at her.
“It’s her.”
Lottie pulled her wand from her robes and stared across the hallway at Ally Overton.
Ally’s dark eyes were just as beady and unperceiving as ever. She had grown nearly a foot since their first year so that she was now nearly a head taller than Lottie”she completely towered over tiny Andrea. Her brown, side swept bangs threw her features into shadow.
“Oh dear.” A frown line appeared in Andrea’s brow.
“What do you want, Overton?” Lottie asked loudly.
“I heard you were in Remedial Charms again.” Her voice was hard and cold, her consonants sharp, bitter and unfeeling. “I must say, I was a bit surprised when I heard that Woolbright was taking the class with you. She’s not spectacular, but she’s at least not nearly as pathetic as””
“You’re just jealous,” Andrea cut in coolly, “because you lost Lottie as a friend.”
“Lost her? Like you ever thought I was friends with her in the first place?”
Lottie’s wand dropped a few inches. “What?”
“You honestly think I was friends with you?” Ally laughed cruelly. “You just looked so pathetic that I felt bad for you.”
Disappointment dropped into Lottie’s stomach like a paperweight. “I”I’m not pathetic,” she said softly.
“Of course you’re not,” Andrea said hurriedly. “Overton, get out of here, or else I’ll call Palmyitor.”
“Aw what will scary Palmyitor do to me? Give me detention?”
Andrea did not falter. “You need to leave. Right now.”
Lottie’s mind was racing. Pathetic? She wasn’t pathetic. She was the best Occlumens in her class. She was going to France because of her talents. If anybody was pathetic, it was Ally Overton, stupid Ally Overton who didn’t know the first thing about the war. Wasn’t it Lottie who was top of her class in Occlumency and Potions? Wasn’t it Lottie who could block a Legilimency attack nearly every time? Wasn’t it Lottie who was Palmyitor’s favorite?
“I’m not pathetic!” she shouted.
Ally looked up and smirked. “Oh, yes you are,” she sneered. “You’re the most pathetic””
“Listen to me!”
Lottie’s voice echoed through the hall and stunned everything into silence.
“I am not pathetic!” She rushed towards Ally and held her wand to her throat. “And don’t you ever, ever call me that again,” she growled.
Ally didn’t know anything. She was never going to play a significant part in the war”she couldn’t spy or fight or do anything helpful.
Ally blinked down at Lottie’s wand. “Merlin’s beard, talk about an overreaction. It’s not even worth it. You’re not even fun to make fun of anymore. It’s just embarrassing.” She turned on her heel and started walking down the hall with a call of, “Ta-ta!”
Lottie moved to follow her, but Andrea grabbed the back of her robes and held her back. “Lottie, no!” she shouted, digging her heels into the stone ground.
With all of her effort, Lottie continued forward, dragging a shouting Andrea behind her. “LOTTIE! STOP IT!” Andrea hit Lottie continually on the shoulder. “IT’S NOT WORTH IT, LOTTIE! YOU’RE NOT PATHETIC AND YOU KNOW””
Lottie halted suddenly, causing Andrea to fall backwards onto the stone.
Before them, Professor Breckenridge stood, chuckling with his wand gripped in his fist. Lottie panicked. She wasn’t ready for this. Carefully, she inched to the side, hoping he would aim at Andrea instead.
From down the corridor, she heard, “Legilimens!”
Immediately, Lottie’s last-minute block was shattered. She could feel Breckenridge digging through her mind, selecting memories. He was just looking for the one that would disturb her most, she could tell as she went through flashes of fighting older Muggles in the camps, sifting through mysterious Dark objects in Palmyitor’s office and shopping in Odin Alley.
She knew exactly where he was going and worked as hard as she could to stop him, doing anything and everything to focus on clearing her mind and losing all emotions. Ally’s face suddenly flashed in her mind. It was two years ago, and she was staring at her as Lottie sat down next to her on her first day of school and muttered nervous greetings.
“No,” Lottie growled, trying to push him from her mind.
He dug farther into her memory.
Ally laughed as Lottie emerged from Stainthorpe’s classroom, late one winter evening.
“It’s Christmas holiday, you know. You don’t have to go to classes.”
“Get out,” Lottie muttered aloud.
“Everybody knows that you’re behind in Charms.”
“Get out!”
Lottie’s hand twitched as she watched her past self’s hand do the same.
“Stop it!”
Ally in the memory staggered backward. Lottie in person did the same.
“Please, stop!”
Breckenridge did not listen to her. Breathless, Lottie stumbled backward and slammed against the stone wall.
Lottie groaned, feeling the back of her head. Blood trickled down her fingers, but she could barely comprehend the pain as more memories flew past her crumbling mental boundary.
A tortured and beaten Andrea reared in the back of her mind, so clear and tangible that Lottie could feel the cold breeze that had haunted her that night. Weathered ropes bound Andrea a tree and cut into her flesh”Lottie could still see the blood dribbling down her forearms and staining the mud beneath her.
It dissolved. This wasn't a memory that Breckenridge wanted.
Suddenly, her hands were stuck to the Ivory Table; she pulled, straining her muscles, but it would not release her. Panic rose from her center and sloshed around her stomach like boiling water. She could see it all again, the scarlet ox, the blue ants and”a snake, glowing an iridescent green.
No”Lottie felt Breckenridge shuffling, searching. The image was replaced with another, more recent memory.
Professor Gabaldon was lying face up against the London Camp’s tarnished pavement. Her eyes were shocked, wide open, dead. Her stiff hand was in a fist; her wand had been blown several feet away.
The memory melted. Blackness engulfed her as Breckenridge searched.
A thin strip of wood in her hand, eleven-year-old Lottie sat with an old piece of parchment, muttering, “Avada Kedavra…”
Immediately, Lottie knew how horribly wrong that was. It seemed adventurous and fun at the time, but now she felt disturbed, unclean. She tried to block the memory, but Breckenridge did not let up.
“Avada Kedavra.”
“Stop!”
“Avada Kedavra!”
“STOP!”
”Avada Kedavra!”
“GET OUT!”
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Unable to contain herself any longer, Lottie screamed. The flashes of memories stopped immediately and suddenly she was lying on the cold floor, covered in sweat.
“Lottie, stop it!” came Andrea’s terrified voice.
Lottie couldn’t hear her; she was still screaming.
Footsteps approached hurriedly; Lottie recognized Breckenridge’s clunking strides and the click of Palmyitor’s pinpoint heels.
Lottie hadn’t stopped screaming.
“Rowe!” It was Palmyitor now. “Rowe, calm down. You’ll wake the entire castle.”
“Come on now, Rowe,” said Breckenridge, grabbing her shoulder. “Come on, now. You’ve always done well before.” He shook her lightly. “This shouldn’t””
Pulling free from the large professor’s grasp, Lottie turned onto her side and vomited all over the floor.
“Professor!” Andrea’s worried voice barely rose above the babble of confused teachers emerging from their offices. “We need to get her to the hospital wing.”
“No, we won’t,” Palmyitor said sternly. “She just needs to get to bed. Come on, Rowe.”
Hatred rose in Lottie like a cobra striking its prey. “Please,” she snarled, “let me go to the hospital wing. I don’t feel good.”
“No, you will go to the common room and get””
“I need to get to the hospital wing!” Lottie pounded her fist against the ground. A jet of pain landed in her shoulder. “I need a Dreamless Sleep Potion or something!”
“There will be no easy way out for you, Rowe,” Palmyitor said and turned sharply to Professor Breckenridge, who was offering a hand to help Lottie up. “No, she doesn’t need any help. Get up, Rowe. You’re going to the common room.”
Lottie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
She looked up. Nearly every professor in the school was crowded in the corridor, silently watching the scene.
Shakily, Lottie got to her feet and stared at all of the teachers before her. Somebody had already vanished the mess on the floor. Trying to avoid everybody’s gaze, Lottie picked up her bag and turned to Andrea. “D-do you want to go to-to the dormitory?” she whispered.
Andrea looked curiously from Lottie to Palmyitor. “Er”okay.” She started to shuffle away, constantly turning around to meet the gaze of all of the teachers.
The common room was crowded, so nobody took any notice of Andrea and Lottie’s late entrance. They snuck down to the dormitory easily; Lottie flopped face first onto her bed and shut her eyes. She could feel Andrea’s gaze burning into the back of her skull.
“Lottie?” Andrea said cautiously. Lottie didn’t respond. “Lottie”what did you see?”
Lottie did not pick her face up from her pillow. “Nothing,” she sighed.
“Don’t even try to lie to me. I may not be a good Legilimens, but I’m not stupid.”
Lottie looked up, eyes burning with the effort of holding back tears. “Just”just things from a long time ago,” she said furiously. “Why didn’t Palmyitor let me go to the hospital wing? I’m obviously””
“Lottie, it couldn’t have been that bad. Why did Overton upset you so much?”
“I don’t know! Okay? I just”I just don’t know.” She slammed a fist into her pillow. “Stupid Ally Overton with her stupid, idiotic name calling!” she roared, beating her pillow mercilessly with every syllable.
A stretch of silence followed. Growing tired of watching the pillow squish under her fist, Lottie dropped her hands and stared at the floor. “I”I’m not pathetic, am I?” she asked quietly. “I thought”I thought I was doing so much… I thought I was helping. I’m not”not””
“Lottie, don’t be stupid!” Andrea said exasperatedly. Lottie drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She kept her eyes tightly shut, preventing Andrea from noticing that they had begun to water.
“Of course you’re not pathetic,” Andrea said more softly. Lottie felt a hand on her shoulder. She did not open her eyes. “I mean you’re not top of our class. Not in grades at least. But you’re the best in Occlumency”and Potions! And you saved me from the Death Eaters in our first year, and you found all of those traitors and Dark objects last year, and we went to Grimmauld Place alone and got all of that stuff! What has Overton done? She’s sat on her bottom in a classroom and has nearly failed Potions and Transfiguration!”
A grin cracked Lottie’s stony face. She looked up, trembling laughter shaking her ribcage. “She’s failing Potions and Transfiguration?”
Andrea nodded in a mockingly serious way. “Oh yes. Straight Ds, I’ve heard. Somebody said they even saw her get a T on her last homework.”
They spent a good hour abusing Ally Overton and pointing out all their own accomplishments. By the time Sophie and Julianne entered the common room, they were both roaring with laughter.
“Are you okay, Lottie?” Sophie asked immediately.
“We heard you had a bit of a”a run in with Breckenridge,” Julianne added at Lottie’s puzzled expression.
“Oh,” she said, her heart sinking; she had completely forgotten about her failure at Occlumency and the scene she had caused. “Yeah, I’m fine. I”er”I just”yeah. I’m fine.”
Julianne and Sophie exchanged glances. “Well, alright,” Julianne said. “But if you wake up and you think you’re going to be sick, vomit to the right, so you don’t hit Andrea.” She smiled.
Andrea smiled too, though hers was far less genuine. “Er”thanks that Julianne; it was really”considerate.”
“No problem!”
Julianne and Sophie went on to busily change into their pajamas and get ready for bed.
Lottie sighed and laid back down on her own blankets, not bothering to change out of her uniform or take off her boots. “I don’t know what got into me tonight,” she confessed once she was sure Sophie and Julianne weren’t paying attention. “I can usually block him really well.” She turned on her side so she could face Andrea who had already changed into pajamas and was in bed.
“You were just upset. You let your emotions get away with you.” Andrea paused before adding, “Now don’t get offended or anything”I mean this in the best possible way, but…” Andrea twirled her wand between her fingers, as if waiting for Lottie to attack her once she spoke. “You tend to sort of blow your top when somebody insults you.”
Lottie sat up, but Andrea raised her hands defensively. “It’s not a bad thing!” she said quickly. “I mean, growing up how we did, of course you’d be a bit”erm”sensitive, but I think it just upsets you more than other things do.”
Lottie fell back into her pillow and sighed. “Maybe.”
“I just think you got so upset that you put your guard down and Breckenridge took advantage of that because he knows how you are.”
“I suppose.” Lottie turned over onto her other side so she was staring at the wall. Julianne and Sophie shut the curtains of their four poster beds and ruffled under their sheets for a few moments before growing silent.
“But at least one good thing will come of this,” Andrea said brightly.
“What?”
"Maybe everybody will be..." Andrea paused, her eyes glimmering with what looked like hope. "Nicer?"
Halfway to Infinity by Eponine
Chapter Notes: Whew. This has been a long, long chapter to edit. Let’s just say there is very little remaining from the first draft. Thank you to TheBird for whipping this one into shape!
This chapter is dedicated to my wonderful class of 2008. We did it, guys!