Order Only - Hols and Legilimency

[alt_hydra]

I'm sorry I'm only just now writing about this, only none of it seemed really useful to the Order. If it were, I would have told everyone straight away, of course. But I already did share a little at Tea Appreciation, so most of you know that I spent much of hols going to MLE with Mummy. I was hoping to learn something top secret, of course, but nothing like that happened. She was busy a great deal of the time and then I would just end up reading in her office. I thought about having a snoop around, but that would be a bad idea. She's not the sort to leave anything incriminating out, and I'm sure she has all varieties of monitoring devices, too.

What I did learn, which might be useful (if obvious), is that a lot of people who work for MLE aren't very happy. Much of the time they're afraid, but often they assume that since everyone else seems fine, they shouldn't show it or talk about it. And of course, most of them don't like Mummy. That doesn't bother her. I think she likes it, even.

She wanted to test my legilimency skills, so she would summon some lower-level worker to her office and ask me what he was thinking. We tried different methods, like having me look into the person's eyes, or having them turn their back to me. I didn't notice a very big difference between the two. What was interesting was that we sometimes saw different things. Or, more rightly, Mummy tended to pick up on one strong, singular image and thought, while I would pick up on several at once. Mummy said this is because I'm inexperienced, and that with more practice I will learn to filter through the "insignificant noise" and get to the truth of a person's mind.

I asked her how you could be sure of the truth of a person's mind. A person's mind has an imagination in it, after all, and if I've had a fantasy about stealing from a shop, that doesn't mean I've actually stolen from a shop. Sometimes we also have hateful, fleeting thoughts, too, that we don't really mean.

Mummy insisted that there was always a truth, that you just had to learn how to pull it out of a person.

I just don't know if it's that simple. But if it is, I suppose I need to learn. How to get to the truth of a person's mind, I mean.

Comments

[alt_justin]

Hydra,

Have you asked her what her colleagues think? It might be instructive to gain the perspectives of other legilimens, what, such as that Penderyn chap.

-Justin

[alt_hydra]

No, I haven't. I suppose I might write to him, though.

Private Message to Hydra

[alt_justin]

I don't fancy Sally-Anne's visions of you or me, though. Let's just hope neither of them is true, what.

-Justin

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

Even the one that's probably about me taking the mark?

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_justin]

That part may be inevitable but it doesn't mean I have to care for it. But no, it struck me as a future in which we're no longer on the same side, somehow. Though it's well impossible to say just from what Sally-Anne was able to describe.

-Justin

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

Well there might be an existence out there where we were never on the same side at all,

The boy with the dark hair and the rabbit. It's Tom. I know that it is.

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_justin]

I'd prefer that to an existence where you die.

Tom from when he was at the orphanage? Or here at school? Was that something he showed you in the diary?

I wish

-J

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

I mean I think it's Tom from the diary. Tully - my rabbit, he made me kill him. So the rabbit is Tully, or maybe the rabbit is me.

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_justin]

Yes, but what makes you say that?lo

Was it because of something he showed you or because of something you remember from when he was possessing you?

I say, sometimes a rabbit is just a rabbit. It's not you, though. Draco's right that most of it's rubbish but it's well unsettling, nonetheless.

-Justin

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

When I read that bit I just felt like I recognised him.

I don't remember everything Tom and I talked about. I wish I did, it might be useful. But what Sally Anne described just seemed so familiar. It might be something that he showed me that I didn't remember until now.

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_justin]

No, I know you don't remember it all, what, only that if this were something he'd shared with you, it might go a long way to authenticate other parts of the vision. Not that the whole could ever possibly be correct, since there are scenes that directly conflict with one another, if you follow me.

I hope you can get some sleep after thinking about that. You've got Jack, he'll help.

Professor Dolohov will have my arse if I'm not ready by six, though, so... so I'll say goodnight.

-J

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

Goodnight then.