In the next Club meeting, Cassian gathered the entire student body, including Draco Malfoy, into the Duelling Club with the energy of someone about to ruin everyone's timetable.
"Change of plans," he said, walking to the centre. "Postpone individual training till second term. For the next few weeks, we're doing something else."
Students craned their necks, shifting on their benches. Cassian's classes weren't just popular, they were warzones of excitement and terror, often at the same time. The new Duelling Club had given them a more focused approach, but that came at the cost of actual time with Cassian. So the announcement brought a buzz, whatever he had in mind, it was clearly bigger than the usual "who can hex a dummy fastest" routine.
Cassian flicked his wand. Instructions burst into the air above them.
Mental Resistance Training
Application Focus: Shielding against magical coercion
Target: Foundational Willpower Fortification
Method: Spell-anchor exercises, construction, thought-loop interference
No, not Occlumency.
Yes, this will hurt your heads.
No, you can't drop out.
A few groans. One delighted cackle from a Ravenclaw in the back.
"The mind's part of your defence. You lot spend all your time flinging hexes at each other, but none of you have the focus of a stunned flobberworm. That changes now."
After his chat with Dumbledore, he'd combed through half the library, and then some private shelves, before he finally dug up a set of mental resistance methods that didn't start with "Step One: Already Be a Trained Legilimens, Harness Your Inner Shield" by some New Age lunatic.
Eventually, tucked behind a crumbling spine in some forgotten tomes, he found something that didn't insult his intelligence. It didn't promise miracles, just structure, rhythm-based recall, verbal anchors, resistance drills. Actual, practical ways to make your brain slam the door when someone knocked too hard.
He managed to get Dumbledore to back down before. But the conversation had left Cassian with a sour taste. Because no matter how thoroughly he made the case, no matter how pointed he got, there were still people out there ready to do worse. People who didn't ask permission. Who didn't stop at "practice."
They were already looking at this school like it was a ripe orchard. Sooner or later, someone would come for the students, whether to bend their minds, break them, or worse. And if any of them were already softened up, made compliant through Moody's brilliant idea of exposure therapy, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Cassian pulled a worn canvas bag from under the desk and dropped it onto the floor. The contents rattled faintly. He crouched, rifled through it, then stood, holding a stack of candles like he was about to summon something illegal.
"One for each of you," he said, tossing them down the rows. "Catch or don't, but if you drop it, I'm not replacing it."
A few scrambled hands, one yelp, and a Slytherin girl narrowly avoided a black eye.
"These aren't your standard hallway shrines. Your delightful Rune professor and I spent the better part of two days charming these into something useful."
He flicked his wand at his own candle. The wick lit with a soft pop, steady and golden.
"They'll go out the second you lose focus. And I don't mean stare-at-it-until-your-eyes-water focus."
He stepped back, letting the candle hover midair. "Focus, in this case, means anchoring your awareness to something else. A word. A concept. Doesn't have to be clever. Doesn't have to be poetic. It just has to be yours."
He scanned the group. "The purpose is to give your consciousness something to latch onto. A constant. Something to help keep you, well, you, when someone else tries to muscle their way in.
"Think of it like this. Your brain is a cottage. Nice windows, maybe some bookshelves. No insulation, but we make do. When a spell hits that tries to twist your thinking, it's like a draught sneaking in. If all your windows are open, you're getting blown to bits. But if you've got something solid to hold onto, it's like slamming the shutters shut."
He paused. "Or, if you're Longbottom, throwing a plant at the intruder. Still counts."
A few chuckled. Neville gave a sheepish smile without looking up from his candle.
"These anchors don't need to be dramatic," Cassian went on. "If you pick something like 'justice' or 'truth', I will personally hex you into next week. You better not pick an abstract philosophy. Think solid and grounded."
He pointed to the air above them. "You'll practise holding the thought while staring at the flame. If it goes out, you're wobbling. If it explodes, congrats, you're probably a Finnigan."
He turned back to the floating candle, tapped it again. The light blinked out.
"Word to the wise, this isn't about brute force. You can't scream your way through this. It's a quiet kind of strength. Patience. Clarity. Like pulling a splinter from your own head.
"Fair warning," he added after a second, "these candles are the easy bit. They're loaded with assistance runes. Baby brooms if you will. The further we go, the rougher it gets. So if you're thinking of picking something floaty now, don't."
A few students sat up straighter.
Cassian gestured the candles. "You'll want an anchor that's solid. Familiar. Something that won't crack the moment you're tired, panicked, or staring down a mind-bending curse. The more grounded it is, the better it'll hold."
He paced once down the line, weaving between benches.
"Advanced mental shielding, Occlumency and the like, usually lean on a structure. Memory architecture. Places you know down to the last creaky floorboard. But if that place is, say, the Great Hall or the bloody Hogwarts library, guess what? Every half-competent Legilimens can map those too. They've been there."
He stopped near the Slytherin row. "You give an intruder a familiar layout, they'll walk right in, kick their feet up, and start rifling through your drawers. So don't."
There was a pause.
"But don't get clever either. If you've never been to the mountains, don't build a mental chalet. If you've never met a wolf, don't summon one to guard your bloody vault.
"Start simple. Start true. Pick something real. A sound. A smell. A room you know better than you know your own face. Stick to it. If you pick red now, and your mindscape turns blue later, it's going to pull you in two. Your magic won't know what to hold onto."
He looked up at them again. "Got it?"
A few hesitantly nodded.
"Good. You've got half an hour to find your anchor. Memorise it. Feel it. Keep it close."
He let that hang for a moment, then clapped his hands.
"Right. Light them. Hold the thought. And no whining if it fizzles out. It just means you're distracted."
Cassian dropped into the front row bench. Across the rows, students stared at their flickering flames, some closing their eyes. A few muttered to themselves. One Hufflepuff looked like he was trying to glare his candle into submission. Cassian didn't interrupt. Thirty minutes of silence was practically a holiday.
Once most of them had opened their eyes and blinked the fog off their brains, Cassian flicked his wand upward. An illusion shimmered into being above his head, grey at first, no clear shape, shifting like steam trying to decide what to be.
"I'll show you how the training looks once it's underway. This isn't my actual memory palace, by the way. Don't get clever. I'm not handing you blueprints to break in later."
The grey started swirling tighter, still featureless.
"Lovegood. Give me a word."
Luna blinked, staring at the grey, her eyes glassy. "Lambent."
Cassian's eye twitched. Should've known better than to ask Lovegood.
"Fine. Lambent it is."
The illusion above shifted. Soft at first. Not the harsh sort that burns your retinas, but that golden-white flicker you get when the sun bounces off fresh snow.
"That's week one," Cassian said, as the shape held steady. "You start with the thing itself. The word. The idea. Brightness."
He turned slightly, so they could all see the image hover, pulsing faintly.
"Week two, you give it a form. You can't hold a concept forever."
The light stretched, shifted, then took shape. A lamb. Blinding white, standing still in the middle of the image.
"Still bright," he said. "But now it is fleshed out. It is tangible. That's your second anchor. You build around it.
"Week three, you turn that into place. Memory and mind don't like floating things. They want space."
As he spoke, the haze turned. A room flickered into view, dim and stone-built. The lamb stood in the centre, casting that same too-bright glow over the flagstones.
"Still lambent," Cassian said, "but now it's got somewhere to stand. Room takes shape around the anchor. Not the other way round."
He let the image linger a moment longer, then cut the spell with a snap.
The light died.
He looked out over the rows again.
"I'll show the other steps later," Cassian said, waving the illusion away. "The important bit is this, you build the palace around the anchor. Otherwise, you'll spend half your mental energy trying to patch the walls instead of keeping the door shut."
Fred raised his hand like he was about to volunteer for something idiotic. "When do we get to build traps?"
George leaned in beside him. "We've got at least a hundred ideas. If you try entering our minds, we want to see if any of them work."
Cassian gave them a flat look. "Do any of those ideas involve restraint?"
"Absolutely not," Fred grinned.
Cassian sighed. "Fine. I'll test anyone who wants to run their palaces through a proper try. Don't pick anything embarrassing."
A few heads turned. Several students looked extremely guilty already.
He then waved them off. "Alright, this is it for today. You're dismissed."
Benches scraped back. Candles flickered out one by one as students filed out, chattering about the lesson.
He spotted the blond hold back before the rest had even crossed the threshold.
Didn't say anything. Just turned toward the board, fiddled with his wand until the last stragglers cleared out.
Only then, once the door thunked shut behind the last Ravenclaw, did he glance back.
"Mr Malfoy," he said, one eyebrow up. "What can I do for you?"
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RIP Sam Lloyd
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