Chapter 7: Occlumency, The Detection Layer (2/2)
He sat in his chair in their designated room, waiting for Quinn to arrive. While he waited, Alan thought about Quinn's progress.
'If Mr. West perseveres with no complaints, it will take him at least another four lessons to construct that shield. If he loses motivation, it may take him an entire month to build the detection layer.'
He broke out from his thoughts when he heard the door open and saw Quinn enter the room. Alan immediately put on a smile, thinking about what kind of emotion Quinn would show when he would mess with him during the lessons.
As usual, Quinn sat on his stool and spoke, ”Good morning, Mr. Baddeley.”
”A good morning to you as well, Mr. West. Are you ready for another try at building your detection layer?” Alan saw Quinn nod his head, so he continued, ”Excellent! Before we start. I will once again explain the process. I will use legilimency to enter your mind and make my presence known. When I enter your mind, you will feel a sensation of heaviness in your head, on which you will concentrate and try to build a layer over your mind with the intent of feeling the heaviness when faced with a mental attack.”
Quinn once again nodded, ”Please, start. I am ready.”
Alan made clear eye contact with Quinn and then used Legilimency to enter his mind. The moment he entered Quinn's mind, he saw a thin layer over covering Quinn's mind. Alan's eyes widened when he saw the layer, and then he looked at Quinn's face, which had a smile plastered upon it.
”Detection Layer, constructed and ready to detect any mental attacks.”, said Alan with a cheeky and smug smile on his face.
Alan was only reading Quinn's emotion right now because if he was reading his surface thoughts, then he would have heard, ”Take that, you shitty old man.”
Alan retreated from Quinn's brain and stared at him, surprised, ”How did you manage to build that layer? Last time, you weren't even close to constructing the layer.”
Quinn puffed his chest and explained,
”After you left, I wasn't happy with my performance, so I kept on practicing and failing, until yesterday when I was able to cover my entire mind with the detection layer.
I have to say, it wasn't easy to imagine the sensation of heaviness while trying to cover my brain without you constantly in my mind. It took me maybe a hundred tries to get that layer with the correct intent.”
Alan kept staring at Quinn and felt an intense urge to dive into Quinn's mind and see how he did it, but restrained himself. One didn't live for more than a century and fail to build up some form of self-control.
”Now that I have this layer, what are we going to do next?” Inquired Quinn, excited to learn the next stage of Occlumency defense.
Alan snapped out of his thoughts and explained the next stage, ”The next stage is to strengthen your detection layer. We need to improve your detection capabilities so that you could detect mental attacks from master Legilimens.”
Quinn felt his excitement deflate as he asked, ”Let me guess, you will attack me while masking your attack and then wait for me to pick up on the attack.”
Alan had recovered from his surprise and was back to feeling joyous as he looked at Quinn's deflated figure.
”How very insightful of you, Mr. West. Let's start, shall we?”
Quinn groaned as he got ready for another day of rinse and repeat. He sighed and asked for the details, ”So, how does the process of strengthening my detection layer work?”
”It is quite simple. You see, there are quite a few ways to attack the mind. What I will do is simply employ different ways to attack your mind.
For example, I can puncture a hole in your layer and then pass through it or treat your detection layer as a cloth or sieve and let my magic filter through your layer without damaging it at all.
Every Legilimens has their own unique way of attacking the mind. If I attack you with various methods, then with time and practice, your detection layer will become more and more robust, and in the future, your layer will know what kind of attack we are facing.”
Alan explained the process to which Quinn asked a question, ”What about a type of attack which I have never faced before. Will my detection layer still detect that attack?”
Alan nodded and answered the question, ”Yes, it will. Mr. West, a major property of magic, is that it works on intent. If you want your layer to detect an intruder, it will. All we are doing is helping it along the way.
By having you face different methods, I am making you believe you can detect different attacking methods. And Mr. West, Intent simply is the belief that you can do what you want to accomplish.”
Quinn wrote everything down and nodded to Alan. Then the new cycle of controlled mental attacks began. For the next three months, Alan would visit the West Manor twice a week and use various methods of attacking the mind.
Quinn's progress continued to surprise Alan. In twenty-four lessons, Quinn had learned to detect twenty-four different methods of breaking into the mind.
It was at that time when George asked Alan to give a report on Quinn's progress.
- (Scene Break) -
George and Alan sat in George's study to discuss Quinn's Occlumency progress.
”How is Quinn doing with his Occlumency lessons?” Asked George to Alan, who sat in the chair in front of the table.
Alan, with the usual smile on his face, reported. ”Your grandson is extremely talented in Occlumency.” Alan looked towards the table as he continued, ”Your grandson isn't a natural occlumens, but I have seen no one who isn't a natural occlumens showcase this level of progress.”
Natural Occlumens/Legilimens were people, who through pure instinct, learn how to perform Occlumency/Legilimency. If these people are taught mind arts, then their progress would be extremely fast. It was like teaching a Metamorphmagus how to do self-transfiguration. They would learn it without even trying it.
George tapped his fingers on the table and asked, ”What are you implying?”
”I am currently teaching your grandson to detect mental attacks and am using different methods to attack his defenses. My original plan was to teach him to detect ten methods before moving forward to build his shields. But, in twenty-four lessons, he learned how to detect twenty-four different methods.
If he was a natural occlumens, he would have some kind of rudimentary defenses, but Quinn had no defense. I could walk into his mind like I was in the park.”
Alan knew about this because he was a natural at both occlumency and legilimency. Before he even started learning both of these magic, he already had a rudimentary shield and could sense people's emotions when he looked into their eyes and concentrated. After he started learning, his progress was just as fast as Quinn's.
After hearing, George asked, ”Then, what do you think is the reason for Quinn's quick progress.”
Alan shrugged while giving his reason, ”I have no idea. It just amazes me how quick he has progressed from scratch. He went from having no defenses to now being able to detect an intermediate Legilimens' attack with ease. I am quite excited to see his future progress.”
[A/N: Novice < Intermediate < Master < Grandmaster(?)]
It would be a while before Alan would come to know the memories of Quinn's magical adventures and would think, 'Ah, this child is just good at magic.'
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Quinn West - Eight years old - MC - Learning how to PROTECC his mind.
George West - Grandfather - Likes to spend time in his study.
Alan D. Baddeley - Teacher - Surprised to see Quinn's progress.
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