Hermione had raised a hesitant hand. "I actually did some research on that this morning." She meekly reached into her bag and brought out a book.
Harry nodded. "In a moment, sure." He tapped on his chair. "I heard Madam Pomfrey talking to Dumbledore. He now also knows that I'm much closer with you two then just casual acquaintances. He may well do something to try and split us apart and we need to be ready for that. You, Hermione, need to be even more careful, since you don't wear a noble house ring, and while with your level of occlumency, an obliviate wouldn't be horrific, just annoying, some potions on the other hand, would be quite bad."
Hermione nodded. She was already checking everything she ate and drank because of John Potter. "Dumbledore may well also try to do something to remove me from the school or even put me in Azkaban. He did it last time, although then he had an actual student death on his hands. I don't know whether he'd go so far as to manufacture a whole crime, just to get me put away, but we can't rule it out."
Beside her, Daphne nodded firmly.
"And finally, we have Quirrellmort." Harry frowned. "He now believes you have an invisibility cloak, even if he doesn't know it's the invisibility cloak. We'll need to check the remaining defences in the third floor corridor and make sure there aren't any that could be defeated with such an artefact, or you've suddenly got a large target on your backs." Hermione shivered.
"We'll also need to guard against him in general, so I don't want you splitting up from each other if you can help it, unless its for one of our projects that requires it."
Hermione and Daphne nodded.
"And until Voldemort is out of the castle, no more mirror training."
Daphne's face fell, before she reluctantly nodded.
"Right." Harry slapped his hands on his knees. "Hermione, you said you did some research?"
Hermione nodded quickly and held up the book again. The moment she and Daphne had left the hospital wing the night before, they'd had a long talk about the last time Harry had had such a strong reaction Daphne filling her in on the Weasley incident when Harry had almost blown up the Burrow. They'd bounced ideas back and forth, but it was Hermione's muggle background and mountain of healing books, both magical and muggle, that had eventually produced their current theory. She handed Harry the book, titled American Directory of Psychological Disorders. "We think you may have cleithrophobia, Harry."
Harry frowned. "What's that?" He started scanning the page she'd opened for him.
"It's the irrational fear of being trapped. Probably from your time in Azkaban. At first we thought you might have claustrophobia, but then we realised that wouldn't make any sense because…" "…Because I'm fine with being in confined spaces." Harry nodded while he read. "Yes, this sounds… eerily accurate… 'patients report experiencing panic attacks when in rooms locked from the outside, when in cars trapped in traffic jams, even sometimes by merely being in a room with someone blocking an open door.' Wow. Okay, I'm not that bad. It only happens to me when…" He looked to be thinking for a moment. "When I believe that I can't get out. Even with all my magic and powers, when I feel I've been backed into a corner." He took a deep, long breath. "And obviously, because we're magical, a high level panic attack for some reason, in my case, materialises as going boom."
Hermione wordlessly passed him another open book, this time magical, and open to a page describing the phenomenon of magical meltdown. Harry smiled. "Yeah, I checked that out at least after the last episode. I see now that I should have put you on this case ages ago, Hermione."
Hermione blushed. At least Harry stopped giving her the disappointed look.
had
Harry sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Okay, so I have cleithrophobia. What can I do about it? I don't need to say that freaking out like that just because Dumbledore stands in front of a door and tells me I can't leave, isn't great from a strategic point of view."
Daphne nodded.
Hermione handed Harry a third book. "There was only one reference that I could find to fighting phobias in the magical healing books. The muggle books have lots of treatments, but they are…." She hesitated. "Problematic, if you're going to, 'go boom,' every time it happens."
Harry took the open book and read down the page. He looked up from the book. "Special occlumency?"
Hermione nodded. "The book says it can take decades to eliminate a phobia entirely though."
Harry smiled. "Maybe — but occlumency does happen to be something I'm very, very good at."
Daphne sat cross-legged on the magically expanded water pipe's cool, rounded, metallic floor, just outside the third-floor corridor room containing the muggle pensieve thing, and slowed her breathing. Occlumency was amazing magic. Under occlumency your thoughts were clearer, your memory better, and your skills developed with the ease of the mythical naturally gifted — but that didn't mean it was without its drawbacks.
Opposite her, sat Harry, also cross-legged, studying her carefully. Hermione stood to one side, alert, watchful, wand in hand, snake in pocket.
Daphne reached inside and sunk into her own mind.
Occlumency allowed her great control over her day to day emotions — anger, jealousy, resentment, fear — all the things she didn't like feeling — but the problem with that was that it did allow her to somewhat control them. Sometimes, paralysing fear was a good thing. Occlumency also brought an understanding of the world far beyond her years, but that understanding could be both a blessing and a curse, for while she was able to make decisions with the clarity of an adult, it also made her mistakes all the more painfully obvious, once she'd made them.
In short, she'd never felt more of a little twelve-year-old girl, as she had when Harry had been telling her off, not half an hour ago. The shame and guilt still stung. Harry had never told her off before. Harry had never needed to tell her off.
"Profero oculus Kilrogg," Daphne whispered, pointing her wand at the space in between her and Harry. Her world split in two and a large floating eyeball appeared, visible only to herself in sight, and to Harry in magic. She'd sworn to never let him down again.
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