Legilimency, Shoggoths, and Nietzche
"Used properly, the power of Occlumency will shield you from access or influence."
Severus Snape stood there, looking down at the young Potter heir, who seemed... Nonchalant.
Severus disregarded this as unimportant to his goal; the sealing of Mr. Potter's mind.
"In these lessons," he said, in that slow drawl, "I will attempt to penetrate your mind; you will attempt, to resist. Prepare yourself."
At that, Mr. Potter leaned back in his chair and gave a firm nod.
It was then that Severus raised his wand and called
"Legilimens!"
And in an instant, everything was black.
"What...?"
The Potions professor found himself standing in a hallway.
Severus snorted. Was Mr. Potter so inept to have succeeded in creating a Mindscape, only to completely fail at placing any defenses at all?
"...li..."
A sound came from a corner, making Severus whirl around, reaching for his wand.
The sound, not unlike that of failed, viscous potion slowly being splattered across the ground and peeled off rang through the air.
His hand found no wand; only air.
And then he saw it, in all its indescribable glory, and he heard it scream, and cry, and shout and laugh with a single sound; a sound of four syllables he would not soon forget.
"TEKI-LI-LI!"
Dumbledore looked up as the door opened to show young Harry and Severus behind him.
"Is something wrong?" Dumbledore asked. "We have no time to waste; the Dark Lord could-"
"His mind is impenetrable," he heard Severus say, in a tone empty of all feeling.
His eyes seemed as empty as well, as if looking upon something that was not there.
"Severus...?"
"He'll be fine given time, Headmaster," Harry said with a small grin. "He merely forgot for a moment that, when you stare too deeply into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you." Harry chuckled softly. "I think Sasha really took a liking to him; she really likes being stared at, the saucy gal."
Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as Snape said quietly
"...So many mouths, and eyes filled with teeth... And the tentacles..."
Harry grinned, and Dumbledore closed his mouth.
Perhaps that's a question best left for another time.
Meanwhile, at Death Eater Headquarters...
"My Lord, are you alright?" asked Lucius Malfoy. Ever since Lord Voldemort had tried to enter the mind of that blasted Potter, he had not moved a muscle.
When he saw his Lord open his mouth, he expected many things.
"Blades... Legs, and arms of steel blades, carved off and sewn on. Nails, driven in and sticking out, and they moved..."
This was not what he had expected.
For what few days Lucius was sure he had left to live, he would swear that he had never seen that tear fall from his master's face, but only out of fear of the Dark Lord's retribution.
"And they moved, like water and oil, with cracks of bone with every undulation," he rasped out, his eyes staring into nothing at all. "I thought I had become a monster, Lucius, and I loved every second of it. But I have seen monsters now."
With an empty stare, devoid of anything at all, Voldemort's eyes held an emotion again, but not something Lucius had ever expected.
"I have seen monsters," Voldemort rasped, "And they have seen me."
In his eyes was fear.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at the notice of surrender from the House of Malfoy, wondering what brought this on, before looking to his side at the book that the young Mr. Potter had gifted him.
"The Collected Works of H.P. Lovecraft" it read.
Perhaps he would give it a perusal, Dumbledore thought.
After all, what was the worst it could contain?
Snape, Door #1, and a Fox
Snape ran.
He was running, and running, and running. He wasn't sure if it was still following him, he just knew that he was lost, indescribably lost, and that THING, with its quadrasyllabic cry had set in him a fear that he had never understood.
So he ran.
Eventually, when he could run no more, he placed his hand on a wall, dropping to his knees and taking desperate, gasping breaths.
He looked behind him, and saw nothing.
He had never been more relieved in that moment, as he leaned against the wall and collected himself.
"What is this place..?" Snape muttered to himself. "The Potter boy... He has a fully functioning Mindscape, but..."
But he couldn't.
This wasn't a Mindscape. Those- Those followed RULES.
In a Mindscape, it was willpower against willpower. In here? He had nothing.
His wand was taken away, his potions were taken away, and here, he had no power. He couldn't push, because there was nothing to push with.
This world couldn't be a Mindscape, but if it isn't, that begs the question...
What is it?
Snape took another deep breath, shaking his head.
He needed to get out.
Looking up to the wall in front of him, he saw something he could've sworn wasn't there a moment ago.
It was a door.
"A way out?" Snape wondered aloud. "Or a trap...?"
Cautiously moving towards the door, he slowly opened it, looking through.
The room was empty.
Snape blinked, his eyes straining to look into the dimly-lit room.
There was a curtain in there, pulled apart to show what looked to be fake fur, and in front of the curtains was a sign.
IT'S ME, it read.
Snape closed the door immediately.
And that's when he heard it. A metallic clanking, fast and getting louder.
Whirling around, Snape's eyes widened as he saw this thing charging at him, a blur of orange looking like a fox.
It leaped into the air at him, its metallic mouth open wide as it screamed this Hellish sound, and Snape felt the impact for a moment, before everything went black.
After Professor Snape was taken to Madam Pomfrey, talking about a giant robot fox, Professor McGonagall had asked what had happened.
Harry took it upon himself to explain, in detail.
"You'd think he would've not come back in after the first time," Harry finished calmly, with Professor McGonagall looking horrified.
"Why in the WORLD, Mr. Potter, would your Occlumency defenses include a MURDEROUS ROBOT THAT KILLS PEOPLE!?"
Harry blinked once, surprised.
"Wait. You mean yours don't?"
A Truest Horror
My Lord, are you sure about this?" asked a rather concerned Lucius Malfoy. "When last you entered the Potter boy's mind-"
"I was not prepared," Lord Voldemort said with a rasp. "This time, I know what I face. His mind is defended by insanity; by horrors the likes of which no normal man could handle so much as perceiving. But when was I ever a normal man, Lucius?"
The Head of House Malfoy flinched.
"My apologies, My Lord. I never meant to imply such things."
"Your apology is accepted. One such as you could not understand, but let me ask you this. If such horrors are his defenses, and I have looked upon them and still maintain my faculties, what do I have to fear?"
Lucius's eyes widened.
"Of course, My Lord; I had forgotten myself for a moment. You are correct. There is nothing one such as yourself-"
"Enough groveling," Voldemort spat. "I shall begin, now, to invade Harry Potter's mind, and this time, I WILL emerge victorious."
And with that, the Dark Lord closed his eyes and sought the one with whose mind he was connected...
"W-What!?"
Looking at his wrists, Voldemort saw his hands bound to a chair. He tried to pull, but as he did, black sigils that seemed to crawl in the confines of his skull without ever moving seemed to shine a black shine across the leather straps holding him down.
"Ballsy," Voldemort heard from behind him. "Y'know, I thought the Slayers would scare you off... But you're not a Dark Lord because you ran from a few little toy soldiers."
Walking into his line of vision came Harry Potter, and Voldemort opened his mouth to spit out caustic insults when Harry pulled out... Something.
"This is a projector, and a tape-player," Harry explained smoothly. "I don't do things in halves, you see. You tripped my defenses, and I don't like that. So I'm going to break you."
Voldemort laughed, a low raspy chuckle that grated one's ears. "You have not the strength to torture me, boy, nor the skill."
"I don't need skill," Harry replying, smiling back wryly. "I just need a recording, and some pictures."
Flicking on the projector, Voldemort was greeted with the image of the most horrifyingly disgusting woman he had ever seen drawn, and her name beside it.
Recoiling in horror, the first line from the talking box nearly eluded him, but he still heard it, spoken in the tones of a teenage girl who seemed to have no need for breath.
"My Immortal, by Tara Gilesbie, like, the best author ever! Chapter One. My name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way..."
Harry sat at the Leaky Cauldron, newspaper in hand and smiling.
The article was about how Lord Voldemort was found by Albus Dumbledore, and at the time of capture was screaming something about some horror or another. His last words to Dumbledore before crying himself into unconsciousness were, 'The Potter-boy is far more evil than I. Even I wouldn't have subjected my victims to THAT seventy-three times back-to-back'.
Chuckling softly, Harry shook his head.
"My work here is done."
A/N: Yeah, this... Is a thing?
A while back, me and a friend were talking about Harry Potter, and we got onto the subject of Mindscapes, Legilimency, and Lovecraft. This is what happened over the next three days.
The only 'plot' to this, was that I wondered what it would be like if Harry had grown up reading H.P. Lovecraft's works, and how that would affect Voldmort's attempts to break into his mind.
Then, it became Five Nights the next day.
Then My Immortal, read by a squeaky teenage girl.
...Yeah, I don't know. I really don't.
Enjoy...?