The heavy tome sat on the table between them, its cracked-leather cover and sinister illustration of the split skull seeming to grin up at Gabriel. He glared at it as though he could burn it with sheer willpower, while Eloá lounged back in her chair, sipping coffee, her lips curved in a smile of pure amusement.
"So," she said lightly, tapping the book with one lacquered nail. Tap, tap, tap. "What did you learn?"
Gabriel dragged in a sigh so deep it rattled his ribs, then straightened, resigned.
"The Mind Arts," he began in a flat voice, "are many and varied, but they share the same root - touching on the immaterial layer of the - who'd have guessed it - mind." His eyes flicked up at her, deadpan. She only smiled wider, so he kept going.
"The Layer of the Mind makes up the Immaterial Body. It stands between the Metaphysical Body of the Soul and the Material Body of Matter. The Material Body is contained, but the Immaterial Body naturally radiates. Its Divine Action is thought - and thought doesn't like to stay put. It flows into the surroundings of an individual, affecting things in a variety of ways."
He rubbed his temple with two fingers, muttering the next part like it had been branded into his skull. "That's why there's the 'feeling of being watched,' or when you sense someone's intent, or supposedly bloodlust. It's all because your sixth sense is picking up on the radiating thoughts of someone else. Projection and Detection - those are two of the basic properties of the Immaterial Body."
Eloá hummed approvingly, folding her hands under her chin. Gabriel shot her a look but continued.
"And the two 'most noble' arts are based on those. First: Legilimency. Basically, it's about strengthening the detection side of the sixth sense - expanding its range, sharpening it, or learning to better interpret what comes through. That's how you tell if someone's lying, feel what they're feeling, sift through memories, and - if you're incredibly gifted and have gone through decades of training - "read their mind"."
He paused, rolling his shoulders before finishing. "There's no proper way to train Legilimency except using it. How far you can go depends on what talent you were born with. Most wizards don't have the inborn potential to allow them anything beyond vague impressions without aid. For them, training starts with the Legilimens spell. Step one: use the charm in order to connect the minds. Step two: learn to cast it wandlessly and nonverbally, by merely locking eyes. Step three: learn to project the sense without a spell, such that you can connect with someone you're not having direct eye contact with, or multiple someones. After that, it's just strengthening what you've got."
He leaned back in his chair, exhaling through his nose. "And that's chapter one of 'Congratulations, You're a Peep, Volume I.'"
Eloá's laughter rang across the kitchen, warm and amused, breaking the tension that Gabriel's dry, monotone recital had built up. She reached over, flicked him on the forehead, and grinned.
"Cheeky brat. Now, continue with the part that actually concerns us."
Gabriel grumbled, rubbing his forehead despite the lack of pain, but dutifully straightened in his chair again. His eyes slid back to the heavy tome as if it were mocking him.
"Fine. Occlumency." He drew the word out, sighing. "It's not nearly as straightforward as Legilimency. Appropriately enough, for something that's mostly about deception, it's often called The Art of Lying - or, more specifically, The Art of Lying to Yourself. That's the whole principle behind it."
He tapped the table with his knuckles, settling into a rhythm as he repeated the text from memory.
"The first step is becoming aware of your own mind. The most efficient way? Being attacked by a Legilimens. Once you've felt it, you can start developing awareness, picking apart your thoughts, analyzing them - why you feel this way, how that memory affects you, and so on. With enough practice, an Occlumens learns to 'mute' thoughts in favor of others, shifting focus."
He furrowed his eyebrows. "That's the crude version, what most people call Emptying the Mind. Basically, once you feel someone trying to get in, you drown your own head in white noise. Singing a song on repeat, chanting a code, imagining an endless blank expanse - anything to crowd out the intruder. It's enough to fool the passive sensing of the untrained, but any novice with half a clue will see through it."
Eloá's lips twitched as if she'd done exactly that to some poor fool in the past.
Gabriel went on, his voice growing a little sharper with irritation at the book's dense explanations. "There's another beginner's trick that goes in the opposite direction. Instead of focusing on one thing, you flood your mind with nonsense. Jokes, colors, stupid memories, songs, shameful moments - never staying on one long enough for the intruder to pin it down. Sure, flashes of the real memory will slip through, but it can buy enough time to break the spell or shake their concentration. Crude, but more effective."
He rubbed his neck, clearly hating where the text had gone next. "Now, it gets… convoluted. Detection itself is a kind of projection, and that creates a link between minds. A skilled Occlumens can, theoretically, invert the connection and turn the attack back on the invader. But that only really works if the Legilimens used a spell to open the door in the first place instead of just doing it by themselves."
His tone dropped half an octave, reluctant. "What's more universal is this: when someone tries to breach your mind, you get a sliver of their intent. You know what they're searching for. That's where the 'lying' comes in. You take the memory they want and craft an alternative version to hand over. They think they've won. Of course, it's tricky. Too detailed, and it feels fake. Too vague, and it feels wrong. If they already suspect you're resisting, giving up a memory too easily will tip them off. So ideally… you make them work for it."
He paused, then leaned back, smirking faintly. "Like this: imagine a kid steals the last slice of pizza in the fridge, then lies to his mom about it. If the mom's a Legilimens, she looks at his memory and sees him opening the fridge. The kid, being an Occlumens, changes that memory to him finding it empty and walking away. Problem solved, right? But if the mom looks deeper, she'll find the memory of him eating the pizza he claims wasn't there. Which means-" He tapped the table for emphasis, eyes flicking up at his mother. "-that an experienced Occlumens doesn't just need to fake one memory. He needs to build a whole web of fakes, all connected, to really fool someone."
Gabriel's smirk slipped, his face tightening with discomfort. He looked away from her, down at his hands. "And, well… the logical conclusion is creating an entire false self. An entire lifetime of memories, feelings, connections - all fabricated. A second persona." His mouth twisted. "The book says the writer met seventeen people who could do that. Twelve went insane. Three became so invested they forgot who they originally were. Only two managed to keep control, switching between lives while still knowing themselves."
Gabriel let out a long, humorless snort. "That's somehow worse than death," he muttered.
Eloá's smile softened, but her eyes stayed serious. "Yes." She tapped the rim of her coffee cup once, then, as if the weight of the subject were a thing to be savoured, she added, almost playfully, "But not nearly relevant for us - not yet. We don't need to get anywhere near even the false-memories stage."
He froze. "Then why'd you let me read all that trash?"
She practically vibrated with delight. "Because my little anjo looked so cute pretending to be a professor." She beamed at him.
Gabriel groaned and let his forehead thump the table. The impact made the heavy book hop; a hairline crack spidered across the surface of the wood and, as if embarrassed, the grain knit itself back together with a faint click. Eloá tittered like a child.
"You forgot the part that matters most," she scolded, leaning forward. Her voice slid from teasing to crisp instructor in a heartbeat. "All three bodies - Soul, Mind, and Matter - have subdivisions themselves. The Mind is split into the Rational and the Irrational: Reason and Feeling, Deliberation and Instinct." She counted them off on her fingers as if reciting ingredients. "What we need is for you to become so aware of your Immaterial Body that you can detect every thought that blooms from the Irrational Mind before it overwhelms the Rational Mind."
Gabriel frowned, blinking slowly. "That's… a lot of words for 'think first, punch later'."
"Precisely," she said, delighted. "Imagine you can fall into the lowest pit of hatred in a single heartbeat, and still stand smiling in front of the person who caused it. Imagine feeling the poison of rage and - by the same glance - measuring the perfect angle and timing to deliver a punch that ends things quickly instead of throwing yourself forward like an animal. That is control."
He muttered something half-hearted about preferring the blunt approach. Eloá's laugh was warm and soft. "That is exactly why you need this."
Gabriel dropped his head back on his arms. "So when do we start?"
He looked up, and Eloá was already on her feet. Wand in hand, she studied him for a long, bright second. The smile in her eyes had gone stern and machine-clear.
"Now," she said. She raised the wand and pronounced the word without flourish. "Legilimens."
The charm came at him like cold water. It wasn't a sound so much as a pressure at the base of his skull: the room narrowed, then split into shards of sensation. For a dizzy heartbeat he felt as if someone else had stepped into his skull and filled it to the point of bursting - feeling around with careless fingers. Images detonated behind his eyes: the Troll punting him across the bathroom, beautiful blue fire, the monster's bulk under his body, the sounds of bone breaking and flash turning to pulp, his hands painted red with blood. They were not whole memories so much as slashes, questions, impressions - and then, threaded through them all, a single bright strand of intent that was not his: searching, curious, clinical.
Despite the whole lecture he just gave, panic took control and he tried to close his mind like a door. The attempt felt like trying to step on air, useless and senseless.
Eloá's face hovered over him. "Breathe," she ordered softly. "Not with your chest. Count backward from seven."
He obeyed, mechanically, teeth clenching. The pressure thinned, flaked like dust, and something cold and sharp - the Legilimens' reach - brushed past. He felt it, small and invasive, then watched it retreat at a sliver's distance.
Eloá's thumbs rested at his temples. Her eyes were fierce. "Good. You felt it. That flash of intent - that's the question. In the future, you'll learn to trace the shape of it, see what it sniffed for."
He wanted to ask how it felt to ask a mind. Instead, his jaw tightened and he nodded. The room righted itself; the lamplight, the news flashing on the floating television, the little steam-bobbles on the surface of his Mum's coffee - everything came back into focus.
Eloá lowered her wand. She let out a soft, satisfied sigh. "That was a good start," she said, lighter now. "But we'll have to do it again. Many times. Only once you get used to the sensation of the foreign mind will you be able to trace the contours of your own. Ready?"
Gabriel winced, mussed his hair and twisted his head sideways, popping his neck. He took a deep breath and tried to remember what the book said about this stage - once he was satisfied he opened his eyes, locking his gaze with his Mum's and nodding resolutely.
"Legilimens."