Mindreading

It was a lazy saturday in the great hall. most students had gone to Hogsmeade but those that couldn't be bothered or didn't have the permission stayed behind and were chatting in the hall. One slytherin witch was sitting in the hall alone, she had shoo'd her usual companion off, saying she wanted to be alone. She could've gone to Hogsmeade, but she didn't see the point. The only reason for her to go there would've been to drink butterbeer alone or shop around, but she couldn't be bothered to do either.  Her only solace was that she had sent her rival off for annoying her. The boy had protested, saying that he wanted to stay at the castle and maybe catch some alone time with her. But she was pissed off and sending him out there with the people he despised was a fitting punishment. It was also important part of keeping up appearances, the boy had opted out of going to the Hogsmeade in order to spend time with her too many times in a row and it started to look suspicious.

The girl went back to reading some notes the boy had left her again. He was thorough but way too verbose. He left out key details of possibly damning nature and it made his scribbling a pain in the ass to decipher. He took it seriously not to include any information that would've caused problems if read by another student or worse a teacher. Once before a teacher had confiscated the notes the boy had written her and she was put into a bad situation. She eventually had to admit that she wasn't interested in the subject and that she stole the notes from Ymous, to torment him with them. She lost 10 points, and was forced to give the notes back to the boy publically, which embarassed her immensely. That is one of the reasons why he's in Hogsmeade trying to act like a regular model student. Another reason was that he dared to suggest her that they should go to Hogsmeade together under some excuse. But when he couldn't think of a solid excuse for them to be seen together like that, she had ordered him to go with his friends. She was hoping the boy had rotten time, but still imagined him laughing with his friends and having a blast, it made her angry. She would take it out on him later.

The girl turned back to the notes and realized the boy had written his notes on the back of an used parchment, without noticing it. He was absentminded and stupid. The girl turned the parchment and realized he had sketched her during class. She immediately turned the parchment around in flustered anger. How dare he do something like that. The girl however wanted to see how bad an artist the boy was and turned the parchment again. She realized that Anon actually wasn't bad, what infuriated her though, was that he drew every detail as lifelike as possible, down to all her imperfections, like her nose that she always thought was an eyesore, pointing up and her thick eyebrows. She started to feel like the picture was more of a caricature and just put all the notes away altogether. She wasn't in the mood to read the boy's notes on legilimency and some sidenotes about attrocities committed by death eaters. The subject was morbid and she was pissed that the boy pussyfooted around the term, as if to spare her feelings. He did a brilliant job at disguising it as research for a future auror career though, he catalogued different ways death eaters had made a slip in combat with aurors, but there was a different way to read those notes. One that she understood the boy was after.

She sighed out of boredom and started scanning around the hall, she decided that she would go to common room and take a nap or something, Maybe find Ismelda and do literally whatever at this point. But she overheard someone mention Ymous in a conversation, she instead sat down and started eavesdropping the people mentioning the boy.

"Usually boys are more worried about getting girls, even his nerd friend has put down his books and is trying to get a date." One gryffindor girl said.

"Yeah, but Anon's driven by something, he really wants to be an auror. It's admirable that he's taking studying so seriously." A ravenclaw girl said.

The girl eavesdropping started to get angrier about the casual way these wenches were using his first name, she was surprised herself how annoyed she got over it.

"Yeah, but he's missing out on all the cool stuff you can only do as a student here, he's never had a date, because now he's busy reading all the time." The gryffindor said "You're in the same house as him, does he ever take a break?"

"Well, he goes out on walks and fights with Merula, that's usually what gets him off his studies. I mean aside from going to Hogsmeade, he's there with that hufflepuff slut now." A slytherin Merula didn't recognize, or even care to, said.

"Please don't call Penny a slut, she's not like the rumours say, they just became friends and she keeps saying that it's all they are." A hufflepuff girl said defensivelly.

"Penny is not a troublemaker, it's that damn Snyde bitch. I think she's afraid that if Anon does become an auror, he's going to be the one who takes her down when she becomes a death eater."

The ravenclaw had noticed Merula earlier than the other girls and was frantically gesturing to the gryffindor girl to shut her mouth, but it was too late, she had heard everything and she was livid.

"You idiots actually believe that failure has what it takes to be an auror?" She said while walking towards the gaggle of girls. "He couldn't take down a dead flobberworm."

"Go away, Merula, no one wants you here." one of the girls said. "And leave Ymous alone for once in your pathetic life, everyone knows you're just doing it for attention."

"How dare you..." the violet eyed girl said angrily.

The gryffindor girl suddenly got up and took her wand out. "You know what, Merula, it's about time someone takes you down for good. I don't know why Anon lets his kindness on the way when dealing with you, but I will not show you mercy."

The girl walked infront of Merula and immediately caused a commotion.  Merula just calmly observed her, she was a seventh year student but woefully inexperienced. Her stance was full of openings and she hadn't even pointed her wand at Merula, not to mention that her grip was loose and she was swaying back and forth for some reason.

"Flipendo!" The gryffindor shouted and tried to catch Merula unprepared. But she actually missed her spell, because she had kept her wand arm too far to the side and didn't take the time to line her wand with Merula. Merula simply stepped to the girls blind side and took her wand out, and without even bothering taking a stance she cast levicorpus on the gryffindor, who immediately screamed and dropped her wand.

"Let her go!" The other girls on the table said and the ravenclaw even went for her wand.

"Expelliarmus" Merula said nonchalantly and disarmed the ravenclaw, before she could do anything. She then stared down the  hufflepuff who immediately sat down and looked at her scared. Merula looked at the slytherin girl aswell, but she was smart enough not to cross her.

"Let me go!" The gryffindor shouted. "You're going to get in trouble for dueling in the great hall!"

"I'm not the one who started it, and I'm not even the one who cast the first spell, you idiot."

"Who's going to believe you? You do nothing but start fights." The gryffindor spat at her.

"Liberacorpus" Merula said and released the girl, who didn't brace herself and tumbled on the floor. "Anon doesn't hold back when he duels me, I am really that great, but dueling you proves nothing." Merula said and turned to walk away.

"You're going to regret this." The gryffindor girl shouted at her.


Merula was annoyed, it had been a long time since she last dueled someone other than Ymous. At some point most students had realized that dueling her wasn't a good idea. She was undisputedly the greatest duelist in the school, but no one ever gave her the distinction. Mainly because of him... Everyone flocked around him, because he somehow managed to look like he took the high road. He had everyone fooled, and she was the one who was hated and had her reputation ruined. While he was applauded and expected to be a great auror after school. None of that bothered her though, she knew what he was really like. The only thing that actually made her angry was the fact that she was clearly a better duelist than him, she had a win streak of three duels against him and in total she had won seven more of the times they dueled. The girl walked into the courtyard only to realize people were returning from Hogsmeade, maybe she'll duel him seriously and take out some of her frustrations on him. After all, he had just spent a nice day out in Hogsmeade, it wasn't good for him to relax too much.

But before she could do anything someone attacked her, she could just watch the crowd coming from Hogsmeade as she was pulled in the air by her ankles. She saw a seventh year gryffindor student point his wand at her.

"End of the line, Snyde, you messed up with the wrong gryffindor." Said the girl Merula had just decimated in the great hall, apparently she went to get reinforcements.

"This is pathetic, you lose a fair duel and you go for a sneak attack?" Merula shouted in anger.

"Shut up, you bitch, you've been given free reign for too long. We're not going to stand idly as you terrorize the school anymore." The girl said and pulled her wand out.

"Expelliarmus!" Merula shouted and disarmed the girl, and turned her wand towards the gryffindor brute. But before she could disarm him, the ravenclaw girl, standing behind merula disarmed her.

Merula was beyond furious now, no one had ever dared to use such tactics against her. "You fucking maggots, you're going to regret this..."

"Oh, what are you going to do, hanging upside down without your wand?" The gryffindor girl gloated. "Maybe you want to puke a few snails up for repentance."

"You weaklings, You better hope he doesn't find out you did this to me!" She shouted without thinking.

The threat made the three assailants go silent, they didn't know exactly who she meant. they first thought she might've meant Barnaby, but he was already in the crowd with Ismelda, watching the commotion.

"Let me go!" Merula demanded.

"Only if you stop attacking Ymous, or other students."

"Never! I will attack him if I damn well please and there is nothing any of you mudbloods can do about it!" She shouted angrily.

The gryffindor girl was slightly shaken by Merula's determination. But she decided to go on with her threat, after all, who would believe Merula?

"Slugulu-"

"expelliarmus."

The crowd turned to look at the slytherin boy, who had walked in on the commotion, people started whispering, why was he stopping them from cursing Merula?

Ymous went to Merula and held her neck up with his left arm and cast liberacorpus with his right hand. He stopped Merula from falling on the ground and gently lowered her down.

"You idiot, what are you doing?" She whispered him angrily, but she was stopped by the look on his face. "Snap out of it!" She tried to calm him down before he killed someone, but the boy just smiled.

"What kind of a behaviour is this, attacking someone like this?" He asked the crowd.

The gryffindor brute lowered his wand, he agreed to help his friend against Merula when he heard Merula had cursed her in the great hall, but Ymous showing up like that was unexpected. He tried to think of something to say to Ymous, but instead he found himself hoisted up by his ankles.

"This isn't like you gryffindors at all. You guys make me angry." The slytherin boy snapped. He stopped trying to hide his anger And pointed his wand at the upside down gryffindor.

"Flipendo"

The gryffindor had never seen anyone use flipendo like that, he felt like he got punched in the face hard.

"Flipendo!" the slytherin boy cast again.

"Please stop this!" The gryffindor girl pleaded. "What are you doing?"

"Flipendo!" the angry slytherin continued casting spells on the dangling gryffindor.

"Oh, what, is this not sporting? You didn't seem concerned when you attacked her." The he said calmly, but his voice was full of anger. He turned to look at the ravenclaw, who still had her wand out. He disarmed her before she had the chance to put her wand away, she screamed and fell on the ground.

The Gryffindor dangling upside down started pleading Ymous to stop. "Please stop, why are you on her side?"

"Did you let her go when she asked you?"

"Expelliarmus!"

He was disarmed suddenly, he turned to look at Merula pointing him with her wand. This caused his curse on the gryffindor to be released. He fell down on the ground and scurried away from Ymous.

Ymous calmed down and looked around and realized everyone had started speculating as to why he would help the girl he hated the most. "What, fair duels mean nothing to you people" He asked the crowd.

"Mr.Ymous, to my office, right now."

The boy started cursing in his head, why was Snape out of the dungeons? And how the hell did he seem to materialize at the worst possible times.

"Yes, professor..." He said defeated and looked at Merula, who stared at him with a troubled look at first but started scowling at him angrily when she realized it.



"Sit down." Snape demanded with his usual monotone voice, this time mixed with genuine anger.

The boy sat down and looked down.

"You had made good progress and now you would throw all of that away with petty squabbles, what were you thinking?"

The boy didn't answer, he just looked down.

"Explain yourself, why were you dueling in the courtyard, your duels with Ms.Snyde are one thing, but what you did to that gryffindor boy bordered on cruelty, so I ask you again, what were you thinking?"

The boy turned to look at Snape in the eyes when he suddenly realized a familiar feeling, Snape was gouging him for answers, he'd seen it before and he had to act fast, He just started imagining Merula, and he concentrated on nothing but an image of her. This apparently worked to some degree, because Snape's expression changed and he turned his look away. What the hell happened there?

"I see, it was about Ms.Snyde..." He said with monotone voice. "Why are you acting like this, she gives you nothing but grief, yet you come to her rescue?"

Ymous wasn't going to let this opportunity slip, he had been given a free pass from the only person besides Dumbledore that could stand in his way. Why hadn't he realized before that Snape was a legilimens, it was obvious when he thought about it.

"I really don't know, professor..." He started thinking of ways to salvage the situation and get Snape off his back. "They attacked her without provocation and outnumbered her..."

"Without provocation is a naive thing to say in her case." Snape reminded.

"It still doesn't excuse three of them attacking her like that!" The boy shouted.

"Why do you care if someone attacks her, you should've let a teacher handle it."

"Because I..." He stopped himself on purpose. He wasn't lying, he just had to make it seem like he wasn't aware of it, in case Snape tried legilimency again, the boy wished he was better at occlumency. He never got it right even when he was being subjected to legilimency as a kid, but apparently focusing on something embarassing like that worked just as well.

"...I see." Snape said. "50 points from slytherin for dueling on school grounds. Although it was more of an assault than a duel. No further action will be taken, but you seriously need to think about what you're doing right now, Ymous. Your future is at stake here, you think Aurors wont look into your activities in school?"

"Seeing them treat her like that just made something snap, I couldn't think straight." At this point it didn't even matter if Snape used legilimency, he was telling the truth.

"Well, then, I will retract losing the points then, but I implore that you try to speak to the girl, perhaps you might talk some sense into her."

What the fuck was going on, why is Snape acting like this, how is this working?

"I can try, but I don't know if I can reach her."

"Well, that is all then, dismissed." Snape said and his scowl softened somewhat.


Ymous went directly to the seventh floor and into the enchanted room, he knew the girl was waiting for him there.

"What the fuck are you doing?" She snapped at him angrily the moment he closed the door.

"Are you kidding me, what were you doing? Who's he?" The boy snapped back.

"I lost my temper, I didn't think, It wasn't a signal for you to come and ruin our cover."

"There is no cover, Snape knows legilimency." The boy said and sat down on the sofa beside the girl. "Why couldn't we just spend today in here?"

"Stop changing the subject, what did Snape find out?" The girl said with a terrified look.

"Nothing concrete, I figured a way to muddy the waters when I noticed he was staring me in the eyes."

"How can you be sure he knows legilimency then?" The girl asked confused.

"Because in order to obfuscate what we have been up to and my real malice towards those people that attacked you, I concentrated on your nose, all he got from me was a picture of you. It made him turn his head and he asked why I had attacked those gryffindors to protect you."

The girl was speechless, so many questions propped up in her head at once but she could only focus on one thing. "My nose, why would you focus on my nose?"

"Your nose is cute... I kinda had focused on it recently..." The boy admitted.

"What!" The girl said and went completely red. "What do you mean, you were focusing on my nose?"

"Uhh... I kinda... Sketched it..." He said dismissively.

"You're a creep, you know that? I saw your sketch, you wrote your notes behind it, you moron." She said trying to sound angry.

"Uh-oh... You weren't supposed to get that... I'm usually more careful..."

"You have more of them?" She shouted.

"Uhh... let's not get sidetracked here, we have a problem." The boy said trying to change the subject. "Snape knows legilimency, which means he absolutely must not get any reason to use it on us, fortunately I have a plan, but we're running out of time."

"What is that then?"

"We need to start dating publically." He said seriously and stared into her eyes.

"Why the hell would I admit going out with you publically?" The girl asked with angry tone.

"I am tired of spending time with you in the cover of darkness. and even then people are talking, there were rumours of our relationship from way back."

"If you want to get affectionate in public, why not just say that, It's a terrible idea and it will just draw more attention to us."

"True, but think of it, no one would think twice that there was anything else going on, rather than this weird worst enemies turned lovers story. The rumours on that would completely overshadow everything."

"How does it help against Snape?"

"Now this is the weird part, the moment I started thinking of your cute button nose, he realized I had attacked those three out of love. he turned his gaze, I think it embarassed him or something, his expression changed completely. He didn't even reduce points for me or threaten me with punishment."

"Snape enjoys splitting up couples that try to group up during his classes, why would he treat us differently, it makes no sense..."

"I don't know, and the less I think about it, the better. But I imagine the more we spend time together in his presence, the less he will try to prod our heads for information. He probably doesn't want to read my mind for pictures of me fantasizing about fucking you. And you even less. it's foolproof."

"And all we have to do is to announce we're dating to everyone?" She asked in disbelief.

"Well, yeah... It's for ensuring our survival. But we seriously need to start picking the pace."

"I'm not going to agree to that, I need to think about it. Do I really want to be seen with you at school..." She really wasn't sure about it. "but you're right about picking up the pace, we're running out of time. No more notes, next time we meet you will give me everything you know... All of it."

"Alright, I'll let you think about it, as for the notes... Very well, no more secrecy between us, but this is the biggest risk we're going to be taking, we need to learn one more unforgivable curse before we move on, and it will run the greatest risk. We'll do that in a week."

The girl just went to her bag and pulled out the sketch. "I was going to burn it, but you actually took the effort with it... You actually like my nose? I thought it was a caricature..."

"I love your nose, your eyes steal the attention, but your nose is the cutest I have ever seen." The boy said unapologetically.

"You drew my eyebrows bushy too, I should pluck them like Penny does with hers..."

"Yeah, I am going to have to ask you not to do that."

"You are a creep, you really like my face that much?"

"I like all of you, Mostly your eyes, but everything else too, your cute nose, your cute butt and your nice..."

"Okay, I get it!" She said with her face red.

"Well, I'd really like to spend another night here with you, but you don't want any rumors to spread, so I am going to go to common room. Just wait for a bit before you come back, so it wont look suspicious." The boy said and got up. "Well, it probably will still work against Snape if we're these covert lovers, trying to hide out true feelings from the rest of the school. Maybe he likes that subterfuge stuff, I don't know... Just start imagining me if you spot him staring at you."

The boy left the room before the girl could open her mouth. she was going to say something about his appearance, but she never got a word out. She was confused and felt unsure about everything, how can someone so evil feel so fond of her, was it genuine? Would she ever know for sure?


When Merula came in the common room and noticed Ymous was back to his usual corner scribbling his notes like nothing had changed, some people turned to look at her but averted their gazes when she looked at them angrily. The atmosphere felt a bit heavy for her, she could hear people whispering, she sat next to Ismelda who looked at her and smiled.

"Welcome back, Merula, You caused quite a scene..." The sombre girl smiled her creepy little smile.

"Those mudbloods are going to pay for this humiliation." She said angrily.

"Oh, but one of them already did, I didn't know you liked Ymous that much, he certainly seems to like you... It seems I misjudged him." Ismelda fixed eyes on her.

"I don't like him, he'll pay too in time." She tried to dismiss the rumors.

"That's good, I've decided that he actually is worthy." Ismelda said and looked at the boy reading a tome.

"...You what?"

"Yes, did you see the way his eyes sparked, I swear he looked like he was about to cast crucio on that gryffindor." The girl smiled wider, it looked disturbing. "All because of you, but oh... You hate him, which is alright. I will take care of him for you, he wont bother you again. He will be busy being protective of me."

Merula stood up and shouted from the top of her lungs. "ANON IS MINE, YOU BITCH!"