let the past die (ability one shot)

[Deleted]

Ben Fletcher was around sixteen years old when he had been reading a book about hiding one's mind and also reading the minds of others. The practices, both known as Occlumency and Legilimency respectively, were unfortunately not skills taught at Hogwarts. So the young Slytherin, who found solace in being alone and hiding away from others took it upon himself to begin to learn said skills and it was not an easy road.

After Ben became Uriah when he was eighteen, he moved out of his house and found a nice, small loft apartment above a pub known as The Hog's Head. It had been modified so that the whole upstairs was split into four different, small lofts so Uriah had neighbors. One neighbor was an old wizard who kept to himself, much like Uriah. When Uriah got the job at the pub as a bus boy, the old man enlisted Uriah into running odd jobs for him. Being that the old man was a wizard, unable to do much work himself, and practically confined to his home, Uriah did much of the work without complaint. Eventually, Uriah brought up the topics of Occlumency and Legilimency and the old man agreed to teach him in exchange for the work Uriah did for him.

Uriah first learned Occlumency in order to close his mind to the advances of others. It was hard at first, but luckily Uriah had done enough reading about the subject in the last two and a half years that he was able to overcome the struggles. The old man, whose name was Han, began to invade Uriah's mind. He slowly began to venture deeper into Uriah's mind, delving further back into his childhood and bringing back painful memories of his mother. Perhaps it was the memory of the woman who abandoned him that brought the strength to close his mind off to Han. One minute he could feel Han entering his mind and bring back the pain, and then suddenly it was like a wall came up so quickly that it surprised Han. Uriah had successfully learned Occlumency.

Legilimency proved to be much harder for the now twenty-one year old. Occlumency had been easier, probably because he was so closed off from people already and it wasn't a big struggle for him to just focus that outward energy more inwardly in his mind. However, Uriah was very stubborn and had a bad temper. Things that didn't come easy for him? Well, he certainly would let it show just how much that bothered him.

Han was a skilled Legilimens, and it took a lot for him to teach Uriah to calm himself and be patient as he attempted to enter his own mind. Han opened his mind to the young man, and for a long time the furthest that Uriah could go was just seeing one little thought that Han would be thinking at the time. This frustrated him to no end but Uriah just couldn't bring himself to find the courage to enter someone else's mind. It wasn't until Uriah was almost twenty-six that he finally was able to learn Legilimency.

Han was ill. It was his old age and he told Uriah that he wouldn't be around for much longer. If Han hadn't learned Occlumency four years ago, Han probably would have been able to see how upset the young bartender was by this. Han was, for Uriah, the closest thing he had ever felt to having a father. Or, at least one that Uriah could be proud of. When Han was confined to his bed, he told Uriah he wanted him to enter his mind and read the very first surface thought he could find. Reading the very surface of one's mind, Uriah could do; it was going deeper than that that was hard for him. "My dying wish... is for you to tell me what you see," Han had thought. Normally, such a thought would have intimidated Uriah and he would have stopped but this time he pushed farther. He had to. He had to do it for Han. He didn't falter, and every time he felt like running he pushed forward and he found it wasn't as terrifying as he had thought it would be to enter one's mind. Uriah peeled away the layers of Han's mind, eventually finding that he, too, had been abandoned at a young age. For different reasons, of course, but Uriah felt a comfort in this. The man he had grown close to, he shared many things with; even the way they were raised. Uriah exited Han's mind to find a prideful look on the old man's face and Uriah had never felt a more familial feeling ever before.