"Ainsi, lecteur, je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre" -Michel de Montaigne
Foreword:
The genre of this tale—humble in origin but perhaps pretentious in writing—is what I hope to be a balanced synthesis of fantasy and science fiction. Indeed, it might even be more accurate to separate this story into three genres: fantasy, science, and fiction. The fantasy will be steeped in the canonical world of Harry Potter; rest assured, magical spells, potions, fantastic beasts, and wandlore will be effective keystones throughout our journey. In regards to the science, I will be pulling the resources of my neuroscience and theoretical physics backgrounds into as much of this story as possible. The fictional aspect—though seemingly redundant—derives not from the importance of defining it as a distinct entity, but rather, to emphasize the science as a standalone piece in itself.
While I would like to confidently state that the science is all true and that you can cite this piece of fiction as you would do a peer reviewed academic journal, it is with a sincere disclaimer that I say that this cannot be the case for my story. In fact, even if I had citations for every sentence and fact presented in this fictional piece of work—which I will provide at times for outstanding experiments and theories—I posit that nothing in science is ever really proven. The power of the scientific method is that the method only accepts any finding that has been supported by myriad experiments. Indeed, our theories of gravity, atoms, quantum entanglement and connectomes are both powerful and capricious. In a paradoxical yet strangely reciprocal relationship, these theories are whimsical under the most modicum evidences that would subject them to immediate disposal. Yet due to this extreme prejudice, or rather, extreme objectivity of this selective process, it does stand to reason that every scientific theory currently used has not been disproven yet—hence, "powerful."
But alas, in a world where magic is prominent, perhaps we will find the unraveling of certain theories accepted today; it really can't be avoided in a fictitious world like Harry's. But regardless of the fate of Heisenberg, Planck, Schrodinger, Eagleman, and Ramachandran in these deathly hallowed halls of fiction, I ask you to try and adopt this mindset: the only thing more powerful than magic is science, because anyone can do science.
And so, with that overdrawn and maudlin piece said, let us begin Harry Potter and the Legilimens' Tale
Disclaimer: I do not own JK Rowling's seminal work on wizardry and witchcraft; my imagination however, well…
"We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination. And we are familiar with the landscapes of our own imagination, our inscapes. We've lived with them all our lives. But there are also hallucinations as well, and hallucinations are completely different. They don't seem to be of our creation and they don't seem to be of our control. They seem to come from the outside and to mimic perception."
-Oliver Sacks, on Charles Bonnet Syndrome
Chapter 1: Auditory Hallucinations
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The incessant noise that early July morning saw the fluttering of two bright green eyes. Long since had the noise stopped being an annoyance and instead adopted a sort of rhythmic soothing effect. After six years of hearing the balanced beat every morning, he greeted his alarm clock with a slow swipe that transferred water from his auburn cheek to his palm.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
As he felt himself leaving the mental gravity that usually accompanies the initial stages of wakefulness, he grimaced as he pulled the cord above him to light his living quarters and shifted his head from the path of the falling water. Again he had somehow repositioned his body during sleep so that his head had ended up directly beneath the running path; perhaps he moved frequently in his sleep or even had a case of mild sleepwalking—no, what was it that the book called it? Somnambulism. Of course, when your sleeping space was confined to 4 square feet, it was hard to verify this hypothesis.
Understanding that he had exactly 26 minutes now until the water stopped dripping and Aunt Petunia came down from her shower to unlock his room—otherwise known as a "cupboard" in what most dictionaries considered proper English vernacular—he moved his hand reflexively to his right where he knew his friend in question lie in wait. Pulling a giant encyclopedia titled Everything You Need to Know About the World Today and More up to his lap, he made his way over to page 1667 and started reading.
Not being given many toys, actually, any toys at all in his childhood, he had been so pleased to have taken in his bound friend a year ago when Dudley rejected Aunt Marge's gift of golden knowledge in favor of his usual playthings—video games, Harry's torso, video games, Harry's glasses. Apparently she had heard from a cousin of a friend of a friend that all the bright kids read books these days. With their precious son's wont at the apex of importance, the book was discarded and left with the other trash: namely Harry.
At first, he had found the entries in the encyclopedia to be incredibly difficult. Yet Harry had always been an early reader. Even before he had attended primary school, he had understood that those interesting lines stood for words, and that words were power. Realizing that his lack of comprehension was more often than not a question of his limited vocabulary, he had thereby made his second best friend: the oxford dictionary. With both companions, words transformed into stories and facts became experiences. And with the advent of his discovery of the public library near his elementary school, his mind had soared.
Already in his relatively short life of nearly seven years—he would actually be turning seven exactly in fifteen minutes—he had worked as Frank Gehry's contemporary on some architectural projects. He had dived through the water as he took on an assortment of different muscle fibers that allowed him to glide along the coastal region. But his favorite times were when he traveled through space and saw the planets, the asteroid belts, the other stars, the network of galaxies and perhaps bubbles that formed multiple universes that made his cupboard space seem infinitely smaller than he had ever even dared to think… Speaking of networks, he had to admit that his favorite subject in the encyclopedia was the brain. How could anyone not appreciate the fact that everything you were and are is included in a three-pound mass of jelly that can contemplate yourself, the heavens, and contemplate itself contemplating the heavens?
"Metacognition," he thought with a smile as he used his newest vocabulary word. Then aloud, "Thinking about thinking." Taking his place on the page he had marked the night before just hours earlier, he began reading about high fructose corn syrup as his eyes lazily scanned the pages; he had already read the encyclopedia completely through several times over. If only the librarians had let him make his own library card. Of course, most of the people there thought he was just being cute when he dove his head into books on general relativity or particle theory. Once, a librarian had even come by telling him that there were no "fun" pictures in the books he had with him, and that he knew of a "magical" place that had a lot of colorful fun books. Not wanting to make trouble, he followed the man to the "magical" place that held two wooden tables and long green cut-outs surrounding them that looked nothing like real leaves. As soon as the man left, he continued on with reading about the proposed applications of the duality of light's nature while sitting next to another child his age who drooled on a book about a giant red dog.
Bringing his mind back to his encyclopedia, he was just about to make his way into the section about semi-conductors when he heard the tell-tale pounding making its way closer to his cupboard. Neatly placing his book behind his back in the corner of the cupboard, he laid down once again after clicking off his light—avoiding the puddle of water that had formed meanwhile—and closed his eyes just as he heard the sounds of the cupboard lock relinquish its vespertine hold. But instead of the usual drawling of his aunt, his eyes suddenly shot open as he heard a voice he did not recognize. It was a voice that sounded so hollow, he couldn't even tell if the person were female or male.
And now, with his eyes open, his mind seemed to freeze as he dumbly stared at the person in front of him. For rather than seeing his aunt, he found himself staring up at a girl-no a teenager-whose clothes looked to be from a medieval fare and hair that…was changing color? But strangest of all, her eyes echoed that hollow voice, buried under a silvery glaze that—for some reason—frightened him more than anything.
"Harry Potter. Come with me." Stretching out her hand with its fingerless gloves, Nymphadora Tonks' face gave no bend to emotion as she firmly grabbed the young boy's wrist and snapped what looked like a snake staff in her other hand. Harry just started to feel his first words come out of his throat as he then felt them suck back into him, with the sensation of his entire body being squeezed and warped through the eye of a needle accompanying it.
ooOoOoo
It was a very agitated Professor McGonagall and a humming Dumbledore that strolled through Wisteria Walk in Little Whinging. Just another corner now, and they would find themselves at a Number 4 Privet Drive. While the pair was quite oddly dressed, a confundus charm had ensured that curious eyes would be led astray. They were here today to check up on a one Harry James Potter and make sure that he was fine, as they always did around the time of his birthday. Dumbledore himself always checked upon the wards every year to ensure that they would keep the boy safe. She had come along this time though, as she was worried for the boy's development. From her memories within Dumbledore's pensieve, she had never seen more pompous and bigoted individuals than the Dursleys.
As the wizened professor continued that nonsensical tune that seemed as random as the wizard himself, she looked around at the white picket houses and struggled to find the words to describe the place. Boring? No, that wasn't quite it. It had everything in line, but it was almost as if everything were too perfect. Not one blade of grass stood above any other in the lawns, and even the little spouts that released water seemed to avoid the pavement they were walking on, as if there were some sort of shield. A brief smile flickered across her face as she thought of her dear friend Pomona using protego on her prized potting sheds. And suddenly, it clicked. The place—this entire little town—was unnaturally ordinary.
"Albus, I must insist my mild annoyance on not being informed of the boy's living condition. Have you checked up on him since the last year's ward checks?"
The wizard slowed his pace as his humming gave way to a soft chuckle. "Minerva, you are much too worried. I am sure young Harry is fine and will grow up to be just like his father." And then, with a small twinkling of his eyes, he asked, "Or is that what you are fearing?"
Minerva turned her head as she walked faster, leaving her response to just that; James Potter had never been a model student, but the headmaster knew that she was worrying about something else entirely. For the past six days, ever since that prophecy had been made, she had not been able to shake a certain feeling. It was almost as if…
Her thoughts were suddenly cut short though as Dumbledore suddenly broke into a sprint that showed a surprising celerity for the man's apparent age. Looking towards his destination, her legs froze for just a fraction of a second before she joined him in his run toward a certain number 4 Privet Drive that had an image of a giant skull with a serpent exiting its mouth. Suddenly, the last words of the prophecy rang clearly in her mind.
"WHILE ONE LIVES TO KILL, THE OTHER WILL KILL TO LIVE—AND BRING DEATH TO ALL SECRETS AT HOGWARTS"
ooOoOoo
Harry felt his breathing slowly regain rhythm as he tried to gain his bearings. It was cold and for the second time that morning, the sound of dripping water woke him. Deciding not to play into a cliché and pinch himself, he kept still as he tried to take in more details. Perhaps it was the fault of the books he had read of the dark ages in Europe, but he couldn't help but think the room he now found himself in looked like a dungeon. A lone torch on one of the walls was lighting the entire arena, though just to the point where he could make out outlines and shadows. That was when he noticed the girl who had, well, done whatever she did to take him here. He had certainly heard about teleportation before, but he was pretty sure that the technology to instantaneously transfer molecules across space and time did not exist yet. Despite the dimness of the room though, the girl was clearly visible standing against the far wall, with her eyes still as glazed as a patient with advanced cataracts.
There were no doors, so how did they get here? Who was this girl? What did she want from him? Was he going to be left here to die before he ever got to live past his 7th birthday? How the hell did he get here? How the hell did he get here? Harry's mind raced through so many questions that the pounding in his head soon matched the pounding in his chest. One moment in his cupboard, the next… in a dungeon. He was just about to reach the point where he was willing to sacrifice his pride and pinch himself to humor his struggling reality and also burst into tears when he suddenly heard a voice shout out.
"Help!"
Jumping up from his sitting position, Harry swung his small frame around as he tried to find the source of the voice. He had just made sure that there were only two people in the room, yet where did...
"HELP!" The voice was louder now, and Harry felt his confusion fade to desperation as he wondered what kind of person could make such a horrid cry. "HELP! HELP! HELP!" Like a song stuck on its record, the voice yelled out louder and louder as Harry scanned every brick of the room, careful to avoid the area around his captor. The sound was so clear, but there was no one else in the room. Walking over to the walls closest to the torch, he pressed his ears into them and then to the floor as he tried to pinpoint the source of the sound. Ratiocination took its habit as different ideas flew into his mind. Could it be that he had been caught up in a human trafficking crime like the ones he had heard about on the news on Miss Figg's television? Could it be that he was just one of myriad children taken from their homes, with several other children in blocks adjacent to his? Perhaps his brain, in its marvelous ability to adapt, had blurred the traumatic circumstances of his kidnapping. Actually, he had heard of short-term retrograde amnesia being triggered by extremely traumatic events, but he had never thought that it would occur to him—sort of in that way that no one ever thinks about how the worst could happen to them.
Covering his ears because the noise had become unbearable now, Harry couldn't help but notice that the sound was still getting louder. But all of a sudden, another sound then joined the clamor. A gruff voice: this one was barking orders. Then another voice that squeamishly complained that he didn't want to work joined the fray. And finally, another voice, this one female, swore more colorfully than Dudley had ever unleashed upon the playgrounds of Little Whinging. But the voice crying for help was still going on, and Harry was just about to go crazy from the experience before he finally decided that he had had quite enough for a day, burst into tears as any normal child would do, and fainted on the spot.
Unbeknownst to Harry, if he had seen a clock at the very moment that the voices had started to ring in his mind, he would have seen the long arm hit twelve as he turned exactly seven years old.
ooOoOoo
McGonagall could only stare in horror as she looked upon the scene. It didn't make any sense at all. How could they have gotten in? Who could have possibly released the Dark Mark into the sky—during the day nonetheless! As Dumbledore weaved his magic around the air and dissipated the Dark Mark with some unknown incantation, she raced towards the door and waved her wand, blasting open the front door. With a vigilance that would have had Moody singing praises, she immediately whipped up a shield and watched for any movement in the immediate vicinity. Hearing a familiar sounding crack, she nodded to herself as she knew that the wizard behind her had most likely apparated into the rooms to check for young Harry. What they found instead though made McGonagall almost weak at the knees despite being the head of Gryffindor.
Here were the individuals known formerly as Petunia and Vernon Dursley, stretched into pieces and mangled with body parts separated, so as to spell a message that was somehow even more fearsome than the mutilation.
"Minerva, we must return to Hogwarts immediately. Be it as it may, I fear it is time to revive the Order of the Phoenix." After a slight pause, Dumbledore closed his eyes as his age seemed to suddenly weigh all at once upon his eyelids. "I'm sorry this happened. I will take full responsibility when the time comes, but we must leave. Now." With that, the old wizard vanished at a sound and left McGonagall shaky but cold. A sharp anger started to twist out of her wand as she swore on the spot to take revenge. Against someone. Waving her wand, she took down the bodies from the wall and was relieved to notice that at least the child's body was not present in the mutilation. She would have to send an auror over to check up on the surviving member after she got to the castle. Using her many years of transfiguration skill, she tried her best to mend the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Dursley to presentable order before wiping the blood off the wall, fading the original message But as she finally apparated away and left the ghastly scene, the message was nevertheless clearly apparent:
I know of the prophecy and will make sure the boy who lived dies
ooOoOoo
Harry sat with his arms around his knees as he slowly rocked himself back and forth in the corner of the room. He found this repetitive motion, like the undulations of a small boat, strangely comforting. He had once painted the media-represented patients of psychiatric wards as being effusively inaccurate and stereotypical. But as he now took comfort in the very same rhythm, perhaps not all of the media was a lie.
He had been here for several days now. He quickly found out that food would appear when he fell asleep; he had tried to stay up several times before this to see how it was being brought in, but he found that even if he stayed awake the entire night, the food would only appear after he fell asleep. Looking around, he knew that this must mean that there were hidden cameras watching his every move. For some reason, his kidnapper wanted to keep him alive. For what though, he prayed he didn't find out anytime soon.
As for the kidnapper, the older girl had just stood there this entire time. As far as he could tell, she did not eat or sleep; she just stood there, with that same glazed look. Of course, her body was obviously feeling the effects of not eating or resting. Already he could tell that she was far more emaciated than when she had first brought him here; her long oxford robes did nothing to help that, with the yellow and black badge at its front strangely out of place next to her pale face. As far as he could tell, she looked to be at least twice his age, though still probably in secondary school. At first, he was afraid to even approach her. But as his self-diagnosed madness from the voices clawed at him, he began to just ignore her presence and stick to his side of the room. Eventually, when the time came, he was even fine with getting rid of his wastes on the floor, as she didn't seem to be affected by anything he said or did.
Speaking of which, the voices. Sometimes, the voices would fade slightly, while other times, the voices seemed to come at full force. Night was his sanctuary, as if his auditory hallucinations started to get tired of torturing his brain so. But then, he would still be subject to that first tormented voice crying for help; that sound never stopped. He had long since given up looking for the source though.
As he slowly munched on a piece of moldy bread that he had found in the corner of the room, he wondered what was wrong with him. Did he have some sort of glioblastoma? No… a brain tumor would not have had such a sudden onset of symptoms. Perhaps the trauma he experienced from the kidnapping had caused a split from reality. But he remembered reading that most schizophrenic symptoms began at least after adolescence. Also, he was fairly certain that there was a genetic component to schizophrenia that had not been seen in any of his relatives.
Rocking back and forth still, Harry felt his cold hands grip his knees a little harder. What was the point of keeping him here? Ransom? Harry Potter was probably the least important child of all of Little Whinging, his aunt and uncle had been made sure of that. Wistfully, Harry scrunched his lips into a dry smile as he realized that he actually missed his misanthropic aunt and corpulent uncle. Hell, he even missed Dudley and his gang. Did they even miss him? He was almost imagining his aunt opening the cupboard to his room and shrugging in indifference when he forced himself to stop. It was too much to think about. Surprised that he could still cry even after he had thought that he rung his eyes dry from the first few days he had stayed here, he wondered if his aunt Petunia missed him.
"Harry?"
Harry suddenly bolted upright as his nascent tears threatened to spill back into his eyes from the movement. Had he just imagined it or-
"Harry?"
Suddenly, Harry realized that he was no longer hearing the cries for help. Rather, the voice had changed to a weak, soft tone that whispered a name he had never thought he'd hear again. Daring to speak, his voice came out choked as he used his voice for the first time in days.
"Yes?" It was barely audible, and he was determined to try again. "Hello? I'm Harry. Where are you?"
"Harry?"
Any rise in optimism suddenly plummeted into cynicism as he suddenly realized that his brain had now decided to torment him in a different way. Rather than crying for help, the voices were now calling his name. But even as he started to accept his delusional state, he couldn't help but feel as if something were different. Maybe he was starting to accept a new reality, one where schizophrenics lived in complete normalcy. But even then, it was still something that he couldn't exactly put his finger on. It was as if the voice… Eyes widening, he swiveled towards the still standing girl. Having already stared into the abyss of psychosis, he decided to take the plunge. Taking a deep breath, he steadily aimed his voice at his captor and decided to lead his own descent into madness.
With a solid voice that surprised him, he asked with his flashing green eyes piercing her own gray orbs; "Have you been the one calling me? For help?"
A silence suddenly came over the dark room as Harry's heart raced. This respite had never occurred since he had first heard the voices. Had he finally vanquished his auditory hallucinations? By targeting his psychosis at his captor and confronting her, had he managed some strange Freudian strategy that actually absolved him of his mental affliction—despite never having seen any empirical evidence suggesting this could happen in any of the books he had read on psychoanalysis?
And then it came. A result that confounded him even more than any psychotic break or theory he had previously thought possible before and during his tenure as a prisoner.
Seeming to come straight from the older girl with glazed eyes, a voice that was clearly directed at him rang that night without any vocal cords vibrating.
"Oh shit. You CAN hear me."
-To be continued-
A/N: And with such macabre origins, that was the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Legilimens' Tale. Rest assured, the second chapter will be quite interesting now that Harry and Tonks can communicate with each other.
As an author who writes for not only his own pleasure but for his readers, I do hope you'll review this chapter. I ask this not only for affirmation—though I welcome praises with a glowing heart—but also for constructive feedback. I currently do not have an editor, so if you're up for reading through around 4000-7000 words for each chapter to check for redundancies, mechanical errors, and plot-holes, I welcome you with open arms.
There wasn't a lot of science in this chapter, but as soon as Harry starts to develop as a Legilimens, we'll begin to see much of the brain's (and quantum mechanics') mysteries unfold. So, please review below and subscribe to my story!