The Mark of a Death Eater

Life Is Unfair

'The most basic form of Occlumency involves clearing one's mind, making it blank and empty, in order to prevent a Legilimens from perceiving one's emotions and thoughts. More advanced Occlumency involves suppressing only the thoughts, emotions, and memories that would contradict whatever it is an Occlumens wishes a Legilimens to believe; hence, it is not obvious that Occlumency is being used even if the person is lying. It requires a great deal of will power, as with resisting the Imperius Curse, as well as a high degree of mental and emotional discipline. It is also one method of resisting the influence of Veritaserum.'

I groaned, pushing the book off my bed. It fell to the floor with a soft thud. I knew all of this. What I wanted was real, practical Occlumency lessons. No doubt Snape wouldn't do it with me now.

After Snape had stormed from the shed, I'd stayed behind to check over my wounds. I still had a bad pain in my back, but my head, having hit a bag of something soft on the shelf, had escaped the brunt of the crash.
I'd repaired the bottles and jars that fell and limped silently upstairs, so as not to alert anyone to what happened.

Much more wounded than my body, however, was my pride; and my trust.

I had no doubt that Professor Snape didn't mean to hurt me, but had simply acted out of defense. Obviously, he hadn't expected me to barge into his mind and pick up on stray thoughts. But my shield charm too, was only out if defense. All those memories coming back had hurt, in a way.

Still, it was stupid of me. What good had come out of the shield charm anyway? Only Professor Snape walking out on me, halted Occlumency lessons, and memories of Lily, a girl I didn't know.

Lily, Lily. Who was she, to strike such a pain in Snape's cold heart? To leave such a lasting memory, that years later, he would remember her still? That the memory of her would hurt so much that he'd hurt me just to get away from it.

Her green eyes came to mind again and I pondered over the familiarity of it. I knew those eyes somehow, I just couldn't remember...

Narcissa greeted us before we left, again by Floo. She hugged me tightly, much tighter than I was used to, and wished me luck. "Take care of Draco for me," she whispered before she let me go. "He doesn't understand..."

What he didn't understand, I never found out.

I couldn't help taking one last, longing look at the witch Valerian's painting. I wished I could be remembered the way she was; for being simply a good person. I wasn't a good person even before, but any chance I did have of changing was gone now. My memory would be tainted by my evil.

I was in for a surprise when I reached Hogwarts. Daphne was angry with me.
However, instead of taking her anger out, she fumed silently, which only made things worse. She was upset because I hadn't answered her letters all break. But how was I to answer letters asking about my fake holiday trip, when I had the likes of Ballatrix Lestrange to deal with?

When I apologized to her, she waved me away. "I've told you, it's fine," she said.
She seemed calmed after I played the pity card ("I haven't seen my parents in such a long time, and it wanted to spend time with my brother,") and bombarded her with questions about Rudolph, her boyfriend.

But her anger came right back when I dropped my full trunk, and her gift bounced across the floor and stopped against her feet, still in it's wrapping paper, bow and all. I hadn't opened her Christmas present. I had time to see her face, a mixture of confusion and anger, as she stormed past me.

The common room was full of people caching up. Daphne sat with Helen, and made a point of not looking at me. With Draco nowhere to be seen, I felt oddly lonely. I gave up trying to be sociable and grabbing my invisibility cloak, left the dungeons for a walk. My legs automatically took me to my old spot, but remembering how I trashed that night, I turned around.

I made it to the seventh floor, tired and unable to think straight. I slid to the floor, wrapping my invisibility cloak around me to keep from exposing. Loneliness threatened to overtake me. I knew how much I'd come to care for my friends, but I hadn't realised how much I'd come to depend on them. For strength, supposed and company.

After thinking all this, I started to feel annoyed with myself. I wasn't supposed to care. That was the basis of my Occlumency lessons.

Without thinking too much, I summoned up a memory of childhood happiness and cast my patronus. The tiger leaped into the air, leaving a wispy blue-silver trail behind it. I stared longingly at it, wishing things were different.

Suddenly, and very much out of nowhere, another patronus came to join it. A stag. Graceful and leaping.

Just like the one in Snape's memories.

I leaped from my spot on the floor and ran after the stag, looking for its caster. Was it Professor Snape? The stag bounded away, reaching a window, where it finally vanished.

I stopped by the window. The cloak had fallen off me somewhat. I lifted it around me and peered outside. The stag was long gone, and it's caster too, by the looks of it.

Giving up on my frustrating game, I left for dinner.

Furthermore, Draco seemed to have forgotten the night we held on to each other, him crying to sleep. He ignored me, for what it was worth, and I heard Tracey Davis in a whisper mention our avoidance of each other to Pansy. Her smug face made it all the worse. I tried not to worry too much about Draco ignoring me, but since we were 'dating' according to everyone else, the thought of Pansy's glee at what she thought was an argument between us made me furious.

I had just about given up on the terrible day when Arrianne stopped me on the way out.
"Hi Emma, how was your holiday?" Her dark hair fell into her eyes and she brushed it away, as usual.
I relaxed at the sight of a friend actually talking to me.
"It was great," I lied. "My family had loads of fun. How was yours?"
"I spent Christmas with my father. It was a little boring, to be honest." She smiled.
"Professor Snape asked me to hand you this." She held out a piece of sealed parchment. "He said to not be late for detention." She smiled again, as if a little embarrassed for me.

I unfurled the paper.

Eight thirty, my classroom.
Don't tell Draco.

My heart soared at this. I was certain this meant Occlumecy lessons.

"Thanks Arrianne." I said, turning away.
I remembered a letter at the bottom of my bag, down in my room. "Will you- uh... tell Zayn I said hi?"
"Sure," she answered.
"Thank you," I replied, and ran out of the hall.