Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s not that hard, she learns, to get a pass from the Restricted Section. Just another damn thing Tom (that bastard) taught her. She slides her hands over the books, feels their slimy dark magic, tastes possibility and hates herself.

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain, she remembers like a mantra, like a prayer. She has learned. She is smarter now. Harder. She will trust the books in the Restricted Section, but not further then she can throw them.

Protecting The Mind, she reads. She likes that title, how it makes hope lurch in her chest and determination fire up like Dad’s car. By Amaranth Gamp.

Tom told her about Amaranth Gamp, a girl he knew. He had tried to break her, but somehow she had made a fortress of her mind and he hadn’t been able to touch her. Ginny grins and opens the book.

Occlumency, she reads, and she likes the way that word rings, like the best type of curse. Occlumency is the art of protecting the mind against intrusion. Oh, she likes that. She wishes she had found this book earlier. 

Ginny Weasley is a model student, nowadays. Oh, she shrinks away from most people, especially Harry Potter. Oh, she’s had a horrible time of it. She does all her homework. She spends her free time on the Quidditch pitch or in the library. What everyone doesn’t know is that she spends her time in the library studying Occlumency. Maybe she’ll feel secure in her own body again, when she masters it.

There are, she learns, several different levels of Occlumency, in increasing complexity. The first and most basic level is the mantra, to repeat a phrase or piece of information over and over again, to block an intruder from seeing anything else, like how she would repeat what her father taught her, and promise to be better. She remembers, with a twinge, how she would over and over again count to seven, the number of players on a Quidditch team and the number of Weasley siblings, in a desperate and ultimately futile effort to keep Tom out. One two three four five six seven, one two three four five six seven. Her initial efforts at the mantra are ruined by the intrusive memory of Tom, like a weed in her garden. She moves onto the next stage. She’s never been good at patience anyway.

The next level of Occlumency is the mindscape, a form which will grow in complexity over time, and which will help her with the next levels. To create a mindscape, a memory or several are used to trap, for lack of a better word, the intruder, and control what they see. Ginny uses Quidditch as hers. She crafts intricate games, pieced together from ones she’s seen or heard about, and spends hours building them up so they seem almost real, like one of Tom’s memories. In retrospect, she’s already learned a lot about Occlumency from living with Tom. When her mindscape has become as perfect as it ever will be, she puts aside Protecting the Mind and turns to another book called Creating an Occlumentic Maze, which Amaranth Gamp (somewhat of a new heroine for her) recommends to learn about the next level . This book requires a passing knowledge of Ancient Runes, so Ginny signs up for the class. 

In third year, as she is perfecting her mindscape and adding the first elements of a maze, Ginny realizes that Professor Snape is a Legilimens. She keeps her eyes away from his, and pretends not to notice his mind in hers, her Occlumency playing weak. Don’t show your enemies how well you can fight them. She delights in convincing him that instead of Ancient Runes, she is taking Arithmancy. Fred and George would love the prank, if she could tell them.

The third, and most advanced level of Occlumency is the maze. She can create a web of associations and memories, and tie it into her mindscape. She can confuse an intruder so thoroughly they will be forced out of her mind. Ginny has always had an active (over-active, Tom almost convinced her) imagination. If Occlumency was a class, she likes to think she’d be Hermione Granger.

When Tom comes back, she runs to the bathroom and cries her eyes out and throws up. Then, she concentrates on her mindscape, runs through her maze like a Quidditch drill, and practices until she’s certain. If Tom comes again, she will be untouchable.

That summer does have its good parts. Knowing Order secrets doesn’t bother her, she can keep them safe inside her, she is no longer vulnerable, her soft fleshy bits deep inside a comforting shell. She wishes she could tell the adults she can be trusted but she doesn’t even think her parents know what Occlumency is. The Grimmauld library is a godsend, though. She hates most of it, especially the nonsensical anti-muggleborn tracts, but she finds a book that shows her how to create false memories so convincing they cannot be told apart from reality, how to lay traps within her mind for a Legilimens, how to form an avatar of herself to lead the Legilimens straight into them. Snape asks her how she likes Arithmancy. She smiles, makes it real as a mirage.

There’s a reason that book wasn’t even in the Restricted Section. Occlumency can be a weapon as well as a defense. She remembers how Tom almost broke her. If anyone else ever tries to take her mind, she will break them.

When she hears a rumor Snape is teaching Harry Occlumency, she laughs out loud. She would be a much better teacher. She hopes Harry will read Amaranth Gamp.

When the war comes to Hogwarts, she is ready. She makes false memories easy as flying, turns her worst memories into traps, feeds invaders to the basilisk. She hides secrets inside of her, better than a Secret Keeper. She lies and lies and lies to Death Eaters’ faces, lies to them inside her head, learns the feel of an unfamiliar mind against hers though she’ll never fail to feel queasy at it.

When she feels Draco Malfoy prying for her secrets and her morals, Draco the son of Lucius who gave her Tom, damn is she ready.