Zach did as instructed, taking a deep breath and telling himself to relax.
He had experienced this a few times, now; he could feel Albus pushing into his mind. He felt different than Lysander. This felt more as though his mind was being fallen into than Lysander's push. Like his mind was a giant soap bubble that simply let Albus in rather than Lysander's brushing against the outer walls of his mind like a blind man waiting to reach the opening. It could have been that experience made all the difference with situations like these. Perhaps being ill like this brought the natural defenses down more and more with time. Or maybe it was just that Zach actually knew Albus and therefore had an easier time trusting him than he did the man who had lied to everyone about his identity for weeks on end and then told him point blank that he didn't care about Zach's well-being except that the whole situation was interesting. Really, who could blame him?
Like he had with Lysander, Zach tried to think of something to distract himself from what Albus was doing; because it was uncomfortable, having your memories rifled through like a frustrated student frantically searching through an encyclopedia for that one phrase... Though of course, Zach thought with humour, Albus would be far more agile than that, wouldn't he?
So, Charms class.
Zach exhaled and went back to first year. He was in Charms class, sitting near the back. Flitwick was standing on a pile of books. Since it was the beginning of the year, the class was split down the middle with Ravenclaws on one side and Hufflepuffs on the other. He'd been sitting with Ernie, one of the few people who could stand him at that time of the year. Hannah was in front of him, and he highly enjoyed taking strands of her hair and dipping them in his ink pot while she paid attention to class. The first class, they had learned the hovering charm....