Harry Evans Chapter 83: The Mind Arts, an exposition (Patreon)

Harry looked at himself in the mirror critically. He was aged up to 25-something years old and was covered up completely with a black cloak, a hood pulled tightly over his visage, which was additionally also hidden by a shadow spell.

His new illegal wand was really coming in quite handy. It allowed him to continue progressing his spell work at a fast pace even while not at Hogwarts. It would be especially useful considering what his next task would be.

If he'd still been using his old wand he could have maybe taught Draco Malfoy only in Diagon Alley where the magic would not have been picked up by the trace. With his illegal acquisition, he could technically take the boy wherever he wanted to. Well, as long as it was within walking distance of somewhere with a floo connection, considering that he unfortunately still hadn’t mastered or even acquired the ability to apparate. He sighed.

‘Regretting having signed up for a job you're not qualified for?’ the invisible sorting hat asked from his head. ‘Should have just stuck to swordsmanship this summer, but, well, if you manage to reform the boy all the better.’

‘Job already got me a house elf and it's going to be getting me a significant amount of galleons and favours per lesson. It is by no means something I regret,’ Harry responded in his mind.

He looked at the mechanical watch on his arm. It was getting to that time, and it wouldn't do being late. 

He’d ordered Narcissa to bring Draco at 14:00 and now it was 13:55. Five minutes early was on time. He turned around in the dank bathroom and exited the small room on the first floor of the Leaky Cauldron. He knew that he cut quite the suspicious figure with his face covered up like that, but quite frankly he didn't care. 

The only thing he had to endure were the awkward stares of other people, along with some fearful glances. However, those went away as it became clear that he was not doing anything untoward or illegal.

He walked through the front, picked up a butterbeer from Tom and went to sit in the furthest corner of the pub, at the time he’d strategically chosen for the pub to be as uninhabited as possible. It wasn't long before another cowled figure, with another smaller one next to them entered the pub, getting more confused glances from the clientele.

Harry couldn't help but giggle at the fact that Narcissa had apparently come with the intent to hide her identity. 

What must have been the duo of mother and son were both dressed in green cloaks with their hoods similarly pulled up and once they found him in his little corner at his grimy table sitting on a bench and sipping a butterbeer they promptly came over and sat down on the opposite side of him.

Harry simply continued drinking and didn't acknowledge their presence.

The two adults didn't say anything until eventually, the smallest of the trio decided to open his smart mouth.

“Doesn't look like anything special to me,” Draco said with a petulant pout which could be read out from his tone of voice. He had platinum blonde hair and stormy grey eyes. A very punchable face.

“I see that you've already taken my first lesson to heart, kid,” Harry said with a smirk. “Never reveal your identity when you don't have to. It’s just a weapon handed straight into the hands of your opponent.”

Narcissa finally spoke up. “That is unless your identity is something that opens, rather than closes doors,” she snarked.

“This identity technically opened the doors to your mansion, if it wasn't for the fact that I prefer teaching in different environments.” Harry shot back. “Regardless, the contract is signed. I can do no harm to the boy unless he starts to aggress against me. You want to spectate the first lesson or what?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” she trailed off.

“Mum,” Draco hissed. 

Very impolite for a young pureblood heir, in fact, the boy. Didn't he know that it was more polite to not speak as a child when adults were conversing?

“Today I will mostly be explaining some fundamentals, I don't know what you covered so I will just assume you covered nothing. It would be unfortunate if there was a gap somewhere that would have to be addressed at a much later point in time when it has already forced disastrous holes to open up in the fundamentals,” Harry said. “After that explanation, I will take the boy and you, I guess, if you want, to come out into the muggle world.”

“What do you mean? Narcissa asked, scandalised. “The deal was to teach him, not drag him amongst the barbarians."

“Perhaps you should let the teaching be done by the person who you so clearly admit is more qualified than you,” Harry retorted.

“Don't talk to my mother like that,” Draco started suddenly standing up from his chair with a loud scrape against the floorboards. Lots of fire for an eleven-year-old. Harry was not fucking around anymore though. The two of them didn't know his identity so he could technically do whatever he wanted with them in the scope of his deal. He put the butterbeer down and extended both his hands towards the two.

He clenched his left fist, towards the boy sitting to the right of his mother.

One weakness of wearing such a large cloak was the fact that, unlike one's own skin, it was not technically too protected from someone else's telekinesis. Sure the property attribute prevented the most obvious uses, but that was only if the users' will was strong enough.

Draco’s cloak clenched itself together around the boy's throat and constricted whatever words wanted to come out of it next.

A warning glare at Narcissa who went for her wand kept the woman sitting down.

“We're not having an altercation, just a nice conversation, no reason for the aurors to get involved.”

“How are you doing this? You swore not to hurt him,” Narcissa growled.

“I am not hurting him. I am disciplining my student,” Harry said calmly and released the boy from his bondage. The tiny body collapsed, two hands going up to clutch at what must have been a bruised neck.

Narcissa stood up. “We’re leaving," she said to her son. The woman was quite obviously stressed. Probably needed a good massage.

Draco refused to listen to his mother, however. He stayed sitting there, put his hands off his throat and while his face was covered by the hood Harry could feel the worshipful gaze suddenly fixed on his form.

“How did you do that?” the boy asked.

“It's basic sorcery. It's not my fault the education standards of this country are so low that such simplicities become impressive,” Harry said, further confusing his origins in the eyes of the Malfoys. 

“Teach me,” Draco demanded brusquely.

Harry realised that even though the Malfoys weren't doing too well at the moment, the boy was still clearly the same spoiled brat that he had been in the original books. However, this interest of his was perhaps a good starting point to get some commitment for the learning. Just because the mother was paying for the lessons didn't mean the child would take them seriously.

“It's not something you can't learn, however, it wouldn't be very Slytherin of me to simply give it to you, now would it?” Harry said. He leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his butterbeer, scanning the rest of the pub to make sure nobody was paying them too much attention. Some hags playing cards and a few wizards having a shot competition. They were fine. He'd put up a notice-me-not, but one could never be too sure if other magicals could see through it.

Narcissa seemingly felt where the winds were turning and sat back now.  

“How about this, if you manage to reach a decent enough level of occlumency, I'll show you a few things.”

Both of the figures seemed surprised by that, but perhaps that wasn't too weird. Sorcery was rare and people willing to hand it out were rarer. 

He wasn’t planning on teaching him anything of course. Unless he got paid to teach. 

It would perhaps make a bit more sense for him to be teaching sorcery rather than the mind arts to be honest.

“Get on with it. Explain your reasoning for the audacity of suggesting my son have anything to do with the muggle world," Narcissa said.

“You hear that boy,”  Harry told Draco. “I'm about to start my lecture. I think that means you should get out something to take notes with.”

“Right here, right now?” Draco asked, confusedly looking around the grungy pub. The general din of conversation in the building, while not overly loud would still prevent anyone from truly listening in on their conversation, if they even noticed it in the first place.

Harry, or rather, Charon, frowned. “Why not?”

“It's loud,” the boy complained.

“Well, let me explain then why that's not necessarily a bad thing,” he considered for a moment how to start. This hadn’t necessarily been his planned departure point.

“A simple explanation perhaps of the mind arts is that it is a mental discipline just as much as it is a magical one,” he began. “The mind is using up its energy to commit to certain actions, and the magic simply complements these actions and transforms them into magical acts. There are several parts of occlumency which can be achieved by muggles. It is only when going to the next level, active attack and defence that one needs to be a wizard.” This was all true. Many branches of thought augmentation were simply mind tricks that monks achieved by meditation and mediaeval scholars had achieved by intense memorization techniques. One learned how to do that, and then made the techniques even more powerful with some magic.

“The reason why it is useful perhaps to have this instruction in a distracting place is thus that we are, by teaching you occlumency, not only teaching you how to wield your magic but also teaching you how to wield your mind. Just as one gets better at casting a spell as one studies its components further and practices endlessly, the mind gets better at the tasks it wants to master, by putting it in situations where it has to practise these situations. Occlumency demands mental focus. It requires the ability to blend out unnecessary distractions. It requires innovativity and willpower. An understanding of the world. These are all non-magical qualities. It seems quite obvious to me that practising in a noisy environment should sharpen your mental focus and your ability to blend out distractions. Doing so in a muggle environment. One you are completely unfamiliar with, I assume, is going to introduce you to fields of knowledge and understanding you did not previously have while serving as a good distraction. If you are ever to encounter hostile legilimens, they will if anything try to breach your defences while you are distracted,” he explained and leaned back. “Well, write that down. It’ll be good practice for Hogwarts.”

Narcissa pulled a roll of parchment from her purse and handed her son a self-inking quill. The boy promptly started scribbling away, even if from Harry's position he could read from the top that the notes weren't very good. At least an attempt was being made.

“I would urge you at this point to ask questions whenever you can because it is for engagement of the material that you gain a true mastery of it. This is the reason why you will probably be writing a lot of essays at Hogwarts. It is not when you're simply listening to someone talk that you learn. It is when you create and research yourself…”

No question came and he gave both people at the table a bored look. “Well, I guess there's never been a spell for creating inquisitiveness within others,” Charon said.

He continued. “The mind arts for the amateur practitioner are generally divided into attack and defence.  Occlumency and legilimency. Perhaps you will find it interesting to note that it was legilimency which was created first. After all, it is only after a method of attack comes into existence, that a method of defence needs to be created. The defensive method does exist in the awkward position that unlike the method of attack it cannot be practised without experiencing mental assault. This is why secrecy clauses are one of the most important things to settle between a mentor and their student, because they will throughout the entirety of the relationship break into the latter's mind repeatedly. It’s also why instruction between family members is a bad idea, there are things we don’t need to know about our loved ones.”

“What are the other fields of the mind arts?” Draco asked.

It was here that Harry was able to show off a bit with the knowledge he'd gained from the book on the mind arts he’d gotten from Burkes combined with the knowledge he gained from the hat. Both were quite decent sources.

“The defence and attack aspects are the most simple techniques of the entire field, but they are also the prerequisite for all other techniques since they are what sensitises the user to being able to distinguish their mind and to control certain aspects of it. After an occlumens has gained a high enough understanding of their field, what they can do with their mind is only limited by their imagination. Rather than simply defending they can hide memories, fake them, and create them. One of the most popular techniques is the technique of mental partitioning. Have you ever wondered why people like Dumbledore can cast three spells at the same time? Creation and animation and enchantment?” He raised his hands, a ball of water in his right, a ball of flame in his left. He clenched his fists and dispersed the effects.

“It is because Dumbledore is likely an advanced enough occlumens to have three if not more, separate streams of thought at the same time. Since our connection to our magic is not limited to one but rather by our own mental power and our control over its processes, it means that one can cast two separate pieces of magic at once. Occlumency may also be used at even higher levels to create long-lasting impressions of memories to encode information into one's own mind. Essentially gaining at one point a photographic memory. This is incredibly difficult but nevertheless possible. More techniques included the ability to stave off the negative emotional effects of light and dark magic and also help in achieving a superior state of mind for stressful situations. One can simply shunt off the anxiety and the fear one has perhaps when fighting in a battle to somewhere where it can be processed later. All very dangerous business. Not something you should be messing with until you have at least graduated from this defence class in particular.” Harry himself was nowhere near gaining proper proficiency in any of the things he just listed so Draco attempting anything before him would simply be suicide.

“What do you mean about the negative emotional side effects of light and dark magic?” Narcissa asked.

Harry hummed thoughtfully. Did they not know? 

“Let's think of the patronus charm for example. The emotion that it requires is happiness. To practise the spell when one must practise one's mental state to bring out happiness in a quick and efficient enough manner to use the spell in the situation it is required, such as protecting oneself from a dementor. Now I ask you. If someone who has practised this spell, and who uses it regularly such as the aurors stationed in Azkaban… Are they perhaps not predisposed to experiencing bursts of happiness? This is after all what they train their mind to do. The mind and one’s magic are two separate things no matter how interconnected they may be.”

“I don't understand. Is that bad? I thought being happy was good,” Draco asked.

“Well, let's assume for the moment a context in which happiness is not good. For example, if one is a judge who needs to determine the sentence of a criminal. If the judge is someone who has influenced their mental state with undiluted light magic too much, they may hold too much empathy, too much happiness and too much hope for rehabilitation from the accused. This may cause an unjustly short or non-existent prison sentence. Being not in control of one’s emotions is one of the worst things that a wizard can do to oneself. Dark magic in a similar manner requires negative emotions such as anger, fear or hate. Imagine if you practise drawing up those emotions so much that they start affecting you and your normal daily life. Any inconvenience becomes a matter of anger. A matter of anger becomes a matter of hate. One finds oneself unjustifiably lashing out at the people in one’s surroundings. There is a reason that people say that the dark arts corrupt the user. It is just that most people forget that the light arts do as well, just in another direction.”

Draco turned his head confusedly from his mother to Charon.

“And the mind arts can technically mediate such factors?” Narcissa asked in a low voice.

Harry hummed. This was what he'd learned and concluded theoretically. However, he had not even bothered thinking about anything beyond occlumency and some thought partitioning himself for the time being.

“Theoretically yes, after all, if one is in enough control of their mental state, one needs less time to generate a necessary emotion, thus leading to less practice. Similarly one can better control one's own emotional state in stressful situations. This means that even if I was a light magic addict, I could still look at things in a detached manner and make a rational decision. However, it is a losing battle in the end. It only ever minimises the effect, I can't imagine that anyone would be able to completely remove it. I at least have not met anyone, not even myself,” he explained, hinting at the fact that he was able to mediate some of the effects of dark or light magic, which was obviously a lie.

“What are the special skills in regards to legilimency?” Draco asked, switching the topic, not really caring for the revelation apparently.

Narcissa however seemed quite shaken. Harry didn't know why. She did grow up in a dark magic household. She'd probably noticed the horrible attitudes of the Blacks. Maybe she just thought of them as hereditary instead of caused by partially external factors.

“Imagine a scenario in which I am breaching your mind. Legilimens usually do this in an attempt to read out some sort of information and then promptly leave. However, what if I left something there?” Harry posited. “One of my own memories perhaps. A sentence. Legilimens cannot reliably change someone else's mind in the long term; foreign elements are rejected. However, before this happens information can be translated without having to use one's mouth. It's a useful high-level trick when one wants absolutely zero chance of ever being overheard. However, the issue is that it requires high-level legilimens, and high-level occlumens to decipher the message. A full conversation requires both users to be proficient in both. It has been posited that if an identity of a person consists of their memories, perhaps a good enough legilimens might be able to override the memories of someone else and thus change their identity. However, I think that this is easier to do through a selective usage of the obliviation charm which allows one to edit memories at the highest level. It's a very structured spell in comparison to legilimens, which makes it more useful for tasks like these.”

“Can I learn something like that one day?” Draco asked curiously. Little psychopath, already wondering how he might use such to his political advantage.

“Sure you could, you just have to invest decades into it,” Harry laughed. “The period between someone usually being able to cast the most simple fire-making charm, and then graduating to controlling the flames of hell is ten years. What I’m talking about is a skill that requires so much more finesse and practise that it's hilariously discrepant.”

“I have to first learn occlumency, right?” Draco asked

“To begin to refine something one must first become aware of it. The simplest way to become aware of one's mind and then later on to learn how to defend it is to have it attacked.”

“Let's start,” the boy said bravely.

“I'm not done explaining everything yet, but we'll get there soon enough. Don’t you worry bout a thing. It’s gonna hurt as well.” Harry laughed.

Someone would experience the same pain he had undergone.

-/-

AN: For some reason this chapter ended up being quite long, and we get to see Harry as a teacher. Is he any good at it? Idk, let's find out in a year when Draco is either competent or kills himself doing some goofy ah shit.