— Clara POV —
Saturday came fast and as I walked to my room, I could already see all of them standing before it. Daphne, Draco, Hermione and Luna on one side, with an out of place Lupin on the other side. „Good morning!", I cheerfully waved, before opening the door.
„As you can see, we got a new participant. Professor Lupin will mostly focus on occlumency and is free to join in on anything else, if he so desires. Now, one after the other please, what progress did you make over the summer break?"
They each reported their progress and everyone except Hermione was roughly on the same level: „Let me guess Hermione, you didn't do anything else than constantly practice?" She answered with a shy blushing nod. „Ok, so you four can mostly practice together now. Theory time", I flashed a toothy grin: „The next step after intent infusion and sensing is intent coating. It differs from the first step, as you just radiate it outwards, without any medium or guidance. It happens on a subconscious level and pares pretty good with body language, which you can research independently if you feel like it. Projection is relatively easier than detection. The easiest example and practice being mentally screaming. It is enough, if you consciously get it out or over of your skin for now, as everything else falls under ejection, which is way harder. It is a metaphysical coat of mental energy, infused with an intent. You could also say, that the medium for the intent is your body, but most beginners make the mistake, that they just focus on one part at a time, which will breed bad habits over time."
„Try it out periodically while practicing intent infusion. As you can already use intent infusion while moving, you can try to lower the amount of intent you infuse and increase your distance from each other, through which you will challenge the others to find it, as it gets harder and harder to sense. If you do not find that challenging enough, you can start refining your movement style, like explained in DATDA last year or even start mock duels. I will also periodically send out intent to check your alertness."
„Now professor Lupin, I would hazard a guess, that you are already familiar with intent and its applications, as you are actively suppressing your own, together with your smell, sound, mana and bloodlust. While I cannot force you to sign this contract, I would like to request it anyways, as you are already dangerous and occlumency will just help you."
Professor Lupin answered: „I will naturally sign this contract. Apart from that, how did you realize it?" „Your suppression? Empathy. You rely too much on your werewolf for occlumency, so your whole mind, while defended, is still an open book for your emotions and surface thoughts." Thereafter came a few shrieks of the other two, while Malfoy even drew his wand, turning in the direction of professor Lupin. „Put away the wand Malfoy, it wouldn't help you anyway. In his human form he is already as powerful as Dumbledore, forget his transformation. You would be dead, before you could blink either way."
„Why did you just reveal that?" Lupin asked exasperated. „Why not? Anyone with two eyes will see it. Luna just does not care for such things, except to cuddle with your werewolf." He threw me an expressionless look, trying to figure out if I was joking: „Malfoy already knew from his dad, Daphne had her guesses through your patronus and Hermione knows, because she is a bloody history freak and probably learned more about the wizards family trees and any Hogwarts graduate than even pureblood scions. Hell she figured out who the four former prank kings were, your secret is just … not really a secret", I took it a step further: „And I already know, that you are a lone wolf and probably an alpha as well, with good chances for the apex title, though you could not care less about that one. You also have a mate you have already met, though you are reluctant to embrace that connection. Probably because she is a lot younger than you, barely a kid for your standards. I could go on, but this is probably enough for now. And before you ask, my senses are ridiculously strong, close to your sense of smell and hearing."
„Now back on topic, I do not want to air all your dirty laundry, even if it seems so. You already have experience with occlumency", I stated: „You probably quit, as your furry friend stops you from sitting still in any way. Probably a bit of ADHS too. You have two realistic possibilities and another dozen less probable. First is a suppression enchantment, though you would be defenseless and I can already see, that you are not a fan. The other would be skipping around ten steps and directly start with moving meditation, something like yoga, tai-chi or similar. That is hard, even for a fitness freak like you, especially with your furry problem, but it is the only realistic method. I do have a proposal though", I said. „Lets hear it", Lupin answered.
„Let me talk with your wolf". „Absolutely not!", he screamed. I raised my eyebrows: „Why not? He is strong, stupidly so, but you should not forget: I am a grandmaster of the mind arts! Even if I cannot handle him, I can just run", I smiled at him. „I see your confusion in your face. Your werewolf is neither an it nor that. He is a sentient though feral being. That is something you should work on! He, not anything else. I am also pretty sure, that he has a name!" Professor Lupin just left, after my short emotional outburst, rant or whatever you want to call it.
Welp, back to practicing I guess. „What are you staring at? Start practicing!" 2 hours passed, before all four of them lay on the ground, completely breathless, as they had decided on mock duels spanning the whole room in the end. „Good job guys and girls. While your sensing range rapidly expanded, it will get harder and harder in the future, as the increase is exponentially decreasing, the farther you get, especially for the passive sensing. I would still advise you to regularly expand your range by even a little bit, as sensing range can also decline without enough utilization. Apart from that, I originally wanted to show you intent sensory overload but we will do it next time. Any questions?" I asked, planning to send them away.
„Yes, actually. Why do you want us to experience intent sensory overload? It sounds painful." Hermione asked.
„I will not force you to participate in that exercise, but the reason behind it is simple. One of the most primal intent infusion, which even some normal humans can use is killing intent and bloodlust. Their most obvious effect being scaring and intimidating people. You are not as sensitive as me to intent yet, but even if you did not train your intent sensing, it would still affect you. Now imagine being exposed to one of those if not even both with your hightened sensitivity? You will either faint or lie on the ground, screaming in pain, wishing to be unconcious, while your bladder does an emergency release." I explained, with a devilish smile on my face: „The same principle can be applied to another primal intent, this one being lust." My grin only widened when I saw their red flushed faces. Hermione shouted: „Too much information!", before running out of the room. The others soon followed her in a much calmer manner, leaving me alone in this room.
I remained seated, took out a carving knife and a block of bulnesia arborea, better known as verawood, and started with my proximity ward, which I had references to, opposite to my other ward-projects. I decided to use this wood because I liked it. There were other more suited types, but at my learning point it does not matter yet.
I had already treated it in the summer, so that it could be used as wardstone. I proceeded to carve the wood into an uniform quadratic cue, before using the material splitting spell, to separate it into twenty-seven smaller still quadratic cubes. I proceeded to carve mana battery runes in the middle one, together with the needed channels to distribute the mana evenly around the cube. On the topmost block, I carved the proximity ward, which was surprisingly easy.
Then I tested it, slowly refining it to working condition, before I added four individual mana signature storage areas in the top corners of the cube. The bottom middle cube contained a ward binding scheme, used to bind the owner of the ward, while the other eight cubes of the bottom side were used for some preliminary security measures.
The remaining cubes on the middle layer were used as a sort of wiring layer, while the four leftover cubes on the top were used as range enhancers and regulators, so that it would span over our whole room, nothing more or less.
Naturally I still refined and upgraded the whole thing as much as possible in the next few hours, until I held a functioning proximity wardstone in my hands. It was nowhere near perfect in any way, but it was my best work till today, so I was not complaining.
Meanwhile Lupin did not come back, but a few students came to me with various questions about occlumency, as Henry was apparently absent. I also needed to explain a horny teenager, that yes occlumency can enhance your lust and similar, but it would be ill advised to use it, as it can be damaging and addicting. Not to mention the moral component and do not forget, that it was ridiculously dangerous to try if you were a beginner in occlumency.
Fun things indeed.