Closed Putting It All Together

[Aine Thompson]

As Aine approached graduation, there was one pervasive thought that dominated her thinking in an oddly reassuring way. Namely, that none of this mattered. For one, the wizarding world was still so far from the reality of the ordinary muggle world, holding herself to the standards and seeming expectations of the wizarding world was just a waste of time. Of course she wasn't ready to get married and settle into a career and essentially have her life sorted out. She was only eighteen, the very idea was laughable. For another, a lot of what she learned was not going to be that relevant once she left the school, so it wasn't worth panicking about. And naturally, she probably wasn't even going to see most of the people she came across again, so worrying so much about what they thought was just a waste of energy.

The answer should've been obvious from the very moment the sorting hat sat on her head and pondered her main goal in life. She would do things her way. Trying to empty her mind completely to protect herself wasn't really working the way she'd hoped. So, she'd approach it from a different way. At this point, there wasn't much left to protect from Professor Styx, so the desperation wasn't as strong, at this point she just wanted to prove she could do it because she knew she could. She was good at defensive spells. So she could be good at this, as long as she didn't force herself to do it the way she thought she had to. She'd do it the way she wanted.

She took a swig from her water bottle as she knocked on the door to the office - it was the right time, and it felt like a formality at this point, but she did want to respect formality at least a little bit. "I'm ready, Professor. I think I've got it this time."

 

[Professor Kalif Styx]

Styx was finishing writing to some of his relatives, approving and disapproving some proposals. Axel wanted to make sure he was doing the job right, and as far as Styx was concerned, he could have chosen someone else to help lead the family. Whatever, once the list was sent out, he heard a knock at the door and a familiar voice rang out. Miss Thompson. Was she actually ready to guard against him? He practically knew her inside and out now. He didn't care for muggles and such before, and now he knew more than he ever cared to know. He sat back in his chair and gestured with his gloved hand for the door to open to see the Head Girl. "We will see about that, won't we, Miss Thompson?"

 

[Aine Thompson]

Aine had crumbled enough before Professor Styx's probing. At this point, she really did have nothing left to lose. Which probably worked in her favour, really, it wasn't like she had anything left to hide. He knew what an ugly personality she had, the nasty intrusive thoughts that sprouted up like popup ads at the most inconvenient of times. But it didn't matter. None of it did, she'd be out of here in a couple of months and could go just live life. And if she was able to protect herself and keep herself safe, all the better.

There was no point in her completely emptying her mind, though. Her brain didn't work like that. So instead of working against it, she'd work with it. "We will, Professor," she replied, taking a seat, leaning over and resting her chin on her clenched fist. Her eyes met his directly, not looking away out of fear - if he'd wanted to kill her, he'd have done it by now - and let her brain get to work. It was like static, layers upon layers of useless information to dig through. Nine times one is nine, nine times two is eighteen, nine times three is twenty-seven, and then beneath that the same two bars of a song she had listened to on the holidays, and below that a poem, and below that...

It was once one got past the layers and layers of useless information they would find the simple thought running around in her mind. You have no power over me. And maybe he'd dig deep enough to find it. But she was certainly going to make it as difficult as possible, fighting back with as much brain static as she could possibly muster up. As difficult as it was, the right corner of her lips twitched, threatening to break into a small smirk.

 

[Professor Kalif Styx]

Styx noticed how brave she was as she seemed like she was confident in her abilities. He clasped his hands together and gave her a minute before working on seeing if he could peer into her mind. What he could get was a lot of noise. 'That is clever. She is making me see what she wants me to see,' he thought. He was also dialing his own ability back a fair bit because of how trained he was. He had decades of experience on her, so he just gave her what someone in their twenties or thirties could do. He leaned back and gestured with his hand, "You've done well. As long as you keep up your mental training, you will keep others out. Or rather, make other legilimens see what you want them to see." Styx folded his arms across his chest and added, "Granted, I also didn't try my hardest either. So don't smirk." Styx tapped his arm. "You'll also have a better chance of resisting the Imperius curse than your peers." He himself had never been put under that spell, but he had used it countless times, in and out of school. It was likely why his hair was spiked in every direction.