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Bella doesn't hear anything from the librarian, and, when she checks in, is told that there is nothing - no expert faculty, no further available books, no correspondence course, nothing. The librarian does at least seem sympathetic. Bella is unhappy. She reads all the books on Occlumency, finds no clues, and tentatively gives up in the face of so much else to do. Her theory teacher, a Scottish import who takes a liking to her, calls her "his little Ravenclaw", which Bella looks up and determines to be a compliment.
She meets the library elves - Mith, Kay, and their small child who nonetheless does a prodigious amount of work, Hazzy. They are friendly, but don't seem to really understand her questions about them; at any rate no one seems to be gratuitously abusing them beyond allowing them their work, so she solicits their invaluable services in book-hunting.
Meanwhile, Sherlock settles into an unschedule. He's allowed the sleeping potion twice weekly to avoid dependence and excess side effects, and uses it Tuesdays and Thursdays; on weekends, Bella tries to absent herself from the room as much of the day as possible to let him catch up, and she does the same thing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the afternoons. Sometimes she sleeps over in Tony's room, but this leaves her with an awful crick in her back even after she learns a Cushioning Charm, and she doesn't like to do it more than once or twice weekly.
Bella's birthday arrives, and Euterpe comes in with gifts from home - arm-warmers and candy and a calligraphy kit from Renée, a book and money "because I don't know what you need where you are" from Charlie. She does not get a broom from Tony. She did not really expect a broom from Tony, especially after ceasing to be her roommate, so she doesn't sulk or even comment.
Sherlock gets her a present, though, and if it's not quite better than a broom it's at least close. It appears on her desk, which narrows down the suspects, and he admits it when she asks, and it's a book on something called -
The Philosopher's Stone.
It doesn't have a recipe. No one knows the recipe. But it has lots of stuff about it.
Bella makes up her mind to become much more attentive in Potions.
And Sherlock gets very, very hugged.
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occluminous
occluminous
"By knowing what I care about, and which of those things I care about more," Bella says.
"Oh," says Feral. "That makes sense, I guess. I don't do that."
occluminous
"Then what do you do instead? If you know some stuff matters and some stuff doesn't."
"Well, if I think of it, I know if it matters or not."
occluminous
Bella decides she's not going to get a satisfactory answer to this question. "Sure."
"I just don't have a list anywhere," he explains. "It sounds like you've got a list of stuff that matters to you, with a bunch of stuff on it, and it's all orderly and everything. I don't have one. But there's still stuff I care about, it's just not organized like yours."
occluminous
"I don't have, like, a master list," Bella says. "With everything all outlined neat. Maybe I should, but mostly it's all scattered around between notebooks and I have the general idea memorized and know where to look for details if I can't come up with them."
"Okay," laughs Feral, "then I'm even less organized than that."
"It's not really," he shrugs. "Your way sounds like it'd confuse me more. What happens if what you care about changes while you're not looking?"
occluminous
"Then I notice that when I look again, and then I figure out why, and try to find out if it's going to happen again and if I want to let it."
"But if something came up before you checked, would you go with what was on the list, or what you really wanted?"
occluminous
"What I really wanted - if I was sure about what that was. Sometimes I might not be. If I was scared or mad or something, I might feel like I really wanted to do something that I'd know was a bad idea if I was thinking clearer. And then I'd have to sort of - step back and remember why I wrote what I wrote, and see if those reasons are still there, and see if I trust my brain however it's being right then."
"Oh," says Feral. "Huh." He smiles. "If you write out that list, can I see it sometime?"
occluminous
Bella thinks about this. "Maybe not all of it," she says. "But some of it sure."
"Why not all of it?"
He shrugs. "Okay."
occluminous
"I care about privacy, that'd be on the list," she says with a little laugh. "That's why I wanna learn Occlumency."
"I don't care much about privacy," offers Feral. "Well, mine. I care some about yours."
occluminous
"Huh. So you wouldn't care that much if somebody Legilimencied you and could see - all your memories - and what you were thinking?"
"...Well, depends on the somebody," he says. "If it was somebody I didn't know that well, or didn't like, I bet I'd get mad. If it was you or the elves I wouldn't mind."
"Why, you wanna learn mindreading? You can practice on me," he says generously.
occluminous
"Not just to mindread," Bella says. "I don't want to mindread anybody who doesn't want to be mindread. It's just, I can't find out how you're supposed to learn Occlumency, and I could make stuff up but I don't know how I'd tell if the stuff I was making up was even sorta right, without - testing it."