Occlumency

After a long and hard cuddle sunlight flooded my eyes. It was the crack of dawn, and it was really beautiful to see it from outside, and not from the confines of your home. The fresh scent of dawn and grass was in the air. It was a vibrant image, a beautiful one.

Lucifer purred because of the warm light that was bading him in warmth. It felt like the start of a good day, but suddenly the events of yesterday hit me. The cloaked figure had been in my dreams again last night.

He was a real pain in the ass, he gave me no privacy at all. Yesterday I was saved from the cloaked figure by the King of the wampus cats, but that seemed to have angered him. He was even more persistent in my nightmares and I had to be saved again.

But this time I wasn't saved by a wampus cat but by a flurry of flames. The flames scared the cloaked figure off and just before the nightmare faded I could see the vague figure of a Phoenix. It's body was purely made out of flames, the inner body consisted of yellow flames and the wings were scarlet red. The phoenix was beautiful, and it spoke, ''You may rest easy now my child.'' The phoenix said with a silver tongue, it was like he hypnotised me, I immediately fell out of the nightmare and slept calmly for the rest of the night.

Lucifer woke up, he trotted towards me and put his head on my lap. He was clearly begging to be pet so I ruffled the hairs on his head and also gave him some belly rubs. Not long after the King walked in on us, ''An endearing image…'' He spoke without moving his mouth, but spoke directly into my brain as usual.

He analyzed us but quickly snapped out of it, he wagged his tail to let us know to follow him and we did. Most of the pack was already awake, I could see the males resting while the females were gone. Probably off hunting some animal.

We headed to the top of the hill and the King sat on the top of it. We could see very far, it was a clear day. Except for one storm cloud, that was probably Raiden just keeping an eye on me. It promised to be another soaring summer day. I vaguely saw the manor in the distance because of the blue light that was around it. I was impressed, the wards were so powerful I could see them from here.

The big wampus cat rested it's muscles and spoke into my mind, ''We'll begin your training with Occlumency, it's better to get a grasp of how the mind works than just to randomly probe someone else's mind. That could be dangerous.'' The King yawned, he was clearly not really looking forward to train another person from the Alucard clan.

''I see you already have some fake memories but they can easily be swept to the side, your core memories are still laid bare, which is a risky strategy if you can confuse the Legilimens to think they're fake memories, but for a skilled user it's easy to tell them apart. They have different frequencies than the fake ones.'' After that I was a little bit confused, frequencies? What did that have to do with fake memories?

''What's the importance of frequencies in Occlumency and Legilimency?'' I inquired, the King gave me an irritated look, ''I thought Lycan would've taught you…'' The King sighed and began explaining, ''Everyone's brain give off different frequencies, your memories are tied to your special frequency, and if you have a memory that's a different frequency it's pretty easy to tell them apart.'' The King explained patiently, but his patience was running out.

The King continued speaking, ''That's also why when you probe someone's mind with Legilimency you need to link to that person's special frequency. The person you're intruding will most likely know you're trying to read your mind if you have a different frequency. Of course you don't need to link to someone's frequency, it's hard work after all. But if you want to be stealthy and don't have the strength to overpower someone's mind it's best to try to link to their frequency. You can unlock their deepest and darkest secret this way.''

The King exclaimed, his eyes locked with mine to make sure if I understood and I nodded. It was definitely an interesting concept. It seemed like I had underestimated how hard Occlumency was. It seemed way more difficult than I had imagined.

''That's why if a skilled Legilimens tried to read your mind you would never know, unless your mind was really active at that time. The easiest way to fend off anyone trying to unlock your mind is by slowing them down, you can do that by putting up a fight like you did, with your castle. But that will never hold, the key to Legilimency is imagination. You just need to imagine you can overpower or just straight up throw a castle around and you'll be able to do that in someone's mind.'' The King spoke with a serious tone.

So that meant that you just need to imagine you're stronger, but if that was the case couldn't you overpower everyone's mind? Or are there some cases where you can't do that because of some special inducement.

''Are there some defences where you can't overpower the mind?'' I inquired with a curious look in my eyes. Learning from the wampus cats was a good idea after all. I would've never read this stuff in the books that I got a while ago.

That made me remember, I hadn't opened Hisoka's letters yet, but that could wait. I wasn't going to risk my life and reveal myself to the death eaters just yet. I'm also pretty certain that I couldn't take them on, I needed to get stronger before I embarked on that adventure.

The King answered my question, he had an approving look on his face, it seemed like he was appreciative that I was paying close attention. This also made it easier to teach me because he didn't need to repeat stuff. He probably had some bad past experiences with Lycan and his predecessors.

''Yes there are some that can block someone out entirely, as long as you can take into account someone's imagination then you'll be able to stop everyone. Just imagine the universe, on one of the planets of the giant universe you have locked your memories. It'll take ages for any legilimens to even find out in which solar system your memories might be.''

The King laid down and stretched his body, letting the sun warm his body and calm his mind. He continued speaking, ''But you can also do the opposite, just imagine a box so small that you're crushed, and when you break that box another box will appear right around that box. With these techniques you can severely piss off a legilimens and break their concentration, which in turn will make you able to pinpoint their location.'' The King said, if this was all true then the possibilities could be endless, but I imagine that the stress on your mind would be huge if you try to replicate these ideas.

''Now you try, tell me when you're done.'' The King ordered me. I was thinking for a while when I finally came up with something. It would be too difficult to replicate the ideas from the King in my mind but I came up with something myself.

My mindscape would work like a game, if you enter forward everything behind you will unrender and change when you turn around. This way you'll actually be walking in a huge loop trying to figure out which way you needed to go. The key was to walk into the rendered area for long enough so that I couldn't handle it, the stress was immense if I had to keep rendering new things.

I kept it simple, I plotted a mall in my mind where I had gone many times in my past life and expanded it for a bit. If you kept going for long enough into the rendered area the shops would look more and more obscure, it turned blocky, like the world turned into Minecraft.

If you managed to break through the mall there was a Sphinx. A woman with a lion's body. It asked the intruder riddles, but it was the last question that was the most difficult. It was a personal question, one that you would only know if you knew the future.

The question was, ''Who toucha my spaghet?'' It was an easy and effective question. Even most people who knew the meme wouldn't know the question. If you got it wrong then you would be punted out of my mind and I would reshuffle the question. Another last resort question I had was, ''Who is master chief.'' And if somebody got that wrong I would reshuffle the last question again with endless possibilities. It was easy, but fun. Improvisation is definitely the biggest weapon you can use in Occlumency.

''I'm done, I think this will tough to crack, even for you.'' The King nodded and entered my mind, overpowering my shopping mall defense. He was stuck for a little bit but he noticed the trick not that long after. He breezed through the question but when got to the last question he seemed to struggle. He failed the question and was punted out of my mind.

He praised my defences, ''You have strong defences in place, they'll definitely be hard to penetrate. But that first defence might be a bit risky. It'll tire you out really quickly and might render you useless if it happened in a fight.'' The King said whilst analyzing me, he seemed to hold me in a higher regard now that I had found out to block him out of my mind really quickly.

''But that's not the only risk, because you have such a question, all your memories will be laid bare, most of the time the Legilimens will only be able to peak into a part of someone's memories when they crack the puzzle, but with such a question no secret will be left unturned. I advise you to be very careful in the future.'' The King said with a serious tone, but I was pretty sure that I would be safe.

''Now for Legilimency... '' The King spoke, this was the part I was looking forward to…