Check out my original story, "Living a Long Life as a Legend"

Chapter 21

The pensieve check-up was proceeding, slowly, but surely, of this Grandfather assured me. I was glad to hear that, since I'd actually managed to read most of the stuff we had on Grindelwald's war already. I mean yes, it was an entire war, that had spanned over the entire European continent. But there were also only so many different accounts of one single war that one could read, before one started to get bored of the same events from different perspectives. Most of the contents of history were after all the same. Only the biased tone of the author that had written it down differed.

Thankfully I had gained a distraction from my wait for the pensieve, which had originally been a distraction from my obsession about the fidelius. Which was, kind of funny.

The new distraction here being that the Granger's had apparently finally picked out the not so subtle clues we'd left them within the books we'd delivered, and were understandably pretty horrified at the existence of legilimency. Oh boy, if their reaction to that particular branch of magic were frantic panic, and pleading to my Grandfather to please tell them that there was a remedy against having one's mind invaded. I couldn't wait to see their reaction when they found out about the honestly pretty rapey combination of the imperious and the obliviate.

Thankfully our plan for the Granger's had already been discussed to death, and thus Grandfather was easily 'convinced' that, if someone needed help, then who was he to not offer it. His grandson, coincidentally, shared the same opinion and had just reached the skill level in legilimency where he could invade someone's mind to train them in defence against intrusions, but was still too inexperienced to actually do any real damage. And thus the first session of me violating the mind of an eight year old girl would happen in... I cast a tempus to check the time. In about ten minutes.

Checking myself over in the mirror I made sure that my muggle clothes, archaic, but not too archaic, were in the correct position, and that I looked sufficiently innocent for the task at hand.

I waited patiently for my grandfather to come fetch me, and when he did, he looked quite snazzy dressed in a frock, we departed, disappearing from our foyer with the memorable pop of apparition.

We appeared within an abandoned alley and once we'd left it, I reoriented myself to see in which part of London I was. We attracted attention naturally, we did look like we'd walked out of a 1920's propaganda poster after all.

Suffice to say I didn't recognize it, it having been several decades since I'd been here. London had also looked quite different in the year 2041 than it did now, in 1988.

It was definitely cleaner though, which was preferable. We quickly made our way towards a two storey, red-bricked house with a nice white picket fence and a small garden filled with slightly neglected looking roses.

Grandfather, instead of using the doorbell, looked around, and flicked his wand at us, and at the door. We entered, steps silenced, and walked through the small, remarkably small in comparison to our mansion, shoe room, towards the voices.

Everything stilled as we walked into what appeared to the living room, a middle-aged man with pepper-grey hair sitting on a couch dropping his newspaper, and immediately standing up to extend a hand towards Grandfather, who, to my respect, with no seeming reluctance, shook it.

"Abraxas, thank god you're here, my wife has been going crazy thinking of all the ways that Hermione could have her mind violated if we didn't start the training as early as possible." He turned to me and extended a hand, which I took. He made to ask something, but I interrupted him as we shook hands. I distantly heard the clanging of pots in what must have been the kitchen.

"Draco Malfoy, this old man's grandson. Your daughter's new occlumency helper, apparently." I said, a surprised look hushed over his face as he took in my words and the tone that I spoke them in.

"Dan, Hermione's father. Your grandfather told me you had a magical talent that let you mature faster?" He introduced himself and asked about my mental condition. I noticed that his breath hitched a little on the word magic, as if he was still unused to it.

Well, it would have been foolish of them to simply let any child work on their daughter's mind, although, it might have been better for Hermione personally if it had been an actual child instead of me.

"Yes, I'm a natural at the magic discipline that your daughter is trying to learn, one of the benefits included is a more structured mind, which leads to faster maturation." I explained, watching Dan's eyes light up in interest.

"One of the benefits?" He asked, at which I nodded.

"Yes, faster thought processing, higher mindfulnesses, better memory, etc. etc. It's a lot like meditation in the sense that it offers a bunch of mental improvements, but that the road there is hard." I said as Dan seemed to be getting more and more excited. "But, don't get your hopes, the benefits are substantially lessened if one is taught occlumency the brutish way, instead of the refined, but time-consuming one."

Dan visibly curbed his enthusiasm. "Yes, yes, I already know, if she walked the longer path Hermione would be finished sometime in her mid-twenties, which is why we're glad that you are here to help. What did your grandfather say again? Shock therapy, don't like the sound of that really, but my daughter's going insane at the thought of someone invading her mind just as much as her mother. So it's good we have the opportunity, just for the nerves if nothing else." He said, question visible in his eyes. He wanted to prod if the manner of learning occlumency was indeed what Grandfather had told him, and thus he was asking me to confirm.

Cute, but misguided, Grandfather and I were working closely together on the 'Granger' case, we'd already discussed exactly what to say.

"Hmm, shock therapy fits all in all, I don't know how my Grandfather explained it, so I'll just give my own analogy in case it might brighten things up more. Have you ever watched a horror movie Dan?" I asked, making Dan blink in surprise at the fact that I was using a muggle analogy, of all things.

"I have, I quite like them actually." He answered.

I nodded. "Good, then you'll understand. The mind of your daughter is untrained to the shock that a mind probe represents, it's like a jump scare in a horror movie. What we're going to be doing is exposing her again and again to the jump scare, metaphorically, via me attacking her mind. Eventually she will lose all fear of it, this is the first step. Now I would like to make a boxing comparison. You cannot block a punch if you close your eyes every time one comes at you. With the jump scare treatment we've managed to make your daughter keep her eyes open, now comes the point where she can observe the attack coming at her, and begins to understand it. With understanding, comes power, and after being confronted with enough punches she should be able, if not to fight back, at least disengage completely from someone wishing to enter her mind." I finished explaining.

Dan was gaping at me, while Grandfather was also giving me a contemplative look.

I wasn't hiding my knowledge of muggles anymore, since I'd been allowed outside often enough by now, that I could have stumbled upon it on one of my outings.

"That's a very concise analogy. Thanks for explaining it to me in such detail." Dan eventually said, sincerity tingeing his voice.

I nodded at him. "Thank you, I admit to having researched muggles a bit in preparation for coming here. There are so many interesting things in your world." I said, childish smile on my face.

"Now regarding the lessons, did we interrupt anything, or can we start now?" I asked, at which Dan nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, better be quick, I'll take you to her. No worries, you didn't interrupt anything." He muttered as he lead me to Hermione's room.