Shades of Gray
By: Orii15
A/N: This story's spent a long time in the back of my mind. I tried once before to write it, but hopefully it's finally good enough to be fully written.
Summary: Tim Black never wanted to get involved with the Order or Voldemort when he came back to England after two years spent in a school in Ireland. He only wanted to find his father, Sirius Black and get his life sorted out. But with his unusual knack for hearing the thoughts of everyone around him and his breif aquaintance with both Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy he is the perfect candidate to become a spy. Before Tim knows what's happening he's been prematurly inducted into the Order of the Pheonix and Malfoy is talking about what a help he could be to the Death Eaters. Caught up in the middle of things, Tim has to figure out where his loyalties really lie and somehow along the way convince his teachers and peers that he's not mad, he's just hearing voices.
Prolougue
A hard shove, a cold laugh, a sharp pain, I could tell who my assailant was before I had even lifted my head off the floor to look. This kind of thing was almost routine to me now, after spending two years at Flinn's School of Wizardry in Ireland. It would have been bad enough if I was just the English kid who'd transferred in from Hogwarts when I was twelve but it was more than that. I was Tim Black, the kid who never spoke if he could help it, who always isolated himself from his peers as much as possible. I looked sick and distracted half the time and sometimes the other kids would find me sitting in weird places, a quiet corner behind a staircase, or in an abandoned classroom with my eyes closed concentrating on something they couldn't know, seemingly detached from the world around me. The thing that sealed my fate as my classmates' sole object of ridicule, though, was the fact that my dad was Sirius Black, an escaped murderer, and that meant picking on me, tripping or shoving or hexing me was somehow turned in their eyes into a noble blow to a criminal instead of an offence. What did it matter if I myself had never done anything worse than muttering the occasional swear word under my breath? I couldn't have been more of a target if someone had painted a bull's-eye on my back.
My SCL didn't help matters either. If you're wondering, SCL stands for Subconscious Legilimency. Technically speaking, every wizard has the potential for this, to be able to constantly hear what's going on inside the minds of everyone else around them. It takes a lot of training, though, and most wizard's don't want to hear everyone else's thoughts all the time anyways, not when normal Legilimency can get them access to deeper parts of the mind, like memories, and doesn't require half as much work. Not to mention it's far easier on the sanity. Still some people are just born with SCL, it's a little like how some are born metamorphmagi or animagi, though usually SCL has more severe effects on a person's personality. I read in an issue of Healers Monthly once that SCL is caused when the mother goes through a particularly traumatic experience during pregnancy. Wizard's with really severe SCL usually lead secluded lives that end with them eventually going mad. My SCL is a pretty moderate form, and what I hear most clearly is what other people think when it's about me. I do hear all the thoughts the people around me think, but if they're not about me it's just as a kind of buzzing in the back of my head like static on a radio. I also sense other people's emotions very clearly. All this amounts to why I don't like crowds or big events like quidditch matches. It's too confusing with all that noise, and all those thoughts from different people. Even though usually they're not thinking about me, it gets to feel very loud and over-crowded in my mind. As if everyone is in there talking all at once and I can't understand them, but there's still no room for me to get a word in edgewise. When I feel like that I always try to go and find a quiet spot to sit and clear my head.
I also learned from the article in Healer's Monthly that knowing Occlumency can be very beneficial since it can essentially block all the incoming thoughts. Ever since I read that article I've been trying to learn. I must have spent at least three days pouring over musty books from the Flinn's library before I found one that had decent instructions on Occlumency. I'm reasonably sure that has something to do with the fact that most of the books at Flinn's are about the same age as Merlin. Still, after I found out what I had to do I tried every morning to clear my head before I went to join the rest of the school at breakfast. Eventually I got to a point where I could block everything out, but holding that kind of barrier around your mind takes concentration and power if you want to keep it up for any significant amount of time. The best I ever had was the day I held it for all of forty-five minutes, but I don't know if that counts because I actually almost passed out afterwards.
Normal Occlumency is blocking the unwanted presence of one person or, if it's a group it's a group where every member is distinguishable as a separate entity. Occlumency for me is something different because it means constantly blocking large muddles of thoughts and usually I can't tell one thought from another. It takes a less energy to push a couple of people out than it does to build a wall around your mind, and that's what Occlumency is for me, putting up a force that obstructs all outside thoughts. But of course I didn't tell any of this to the nurse who kept me in the Hospital Wing for a day and a half at Flinn's any of this.
The boy who'd knocked me down wasn't satisfied that I'd knocked my head against the floor. As usual the prospect of someone tormenting Tim Black had drawn a small crowd, it was more interesting than going to class and usually the ending was quite funny. I was a spectacle. The boy jabbed me in the ribs with the toe of his shoe.
"Leave me alone." I said
Disdain. Pride. Pleasure. This kid is pathetic. "Why don't you make me, Black? What're you gonna do, ask your dad to come and finish me off for you in the night?"
I doubted Sirius Black remembered my mum, Leah, who had been his fiancée, much less that he knew I existed, but that was just another thing for them to throw in my face and so I didn't say anything. I just stood up and brushed the dust off myself.
Impatience. Longing to be the center of attention. "Careful Murphy," said a stocky blonde boy "Black looks angry. I think he's going to kill you himself." Sarcasm dripped off every syllable and the students around us exploded into laughter. I mused that killing them might have its advantages, but it wasn't a serious consideration. I tried to push my way through the throng of people so I could at least get into a more open space rather than being crowded against the wall in the narrow drafty Flinn's hallways.
Conceit. Scorn. Delight. "Where you going Black?"
"Probably to owl his dad."
"Yea, they mean to kill us together. That's what passes for quality family time in the House of Black."
Someone pushed me back so I was surrounded by the horde of students again. Foreign thoughts buzzed in the back of my head, and I heard some clearly, mostly people thinking of more ways to slander the House of Black and my father. I reminded myself that it could have been worse, they were only attacking verbally and I supposed could deal with a little pushing. I was only in trouble if one of them thought to draw their wand.
Contempt. "Don't just stand there Black. Why don't you show us some of those Death Eater curses your father uses?"
I tried to get away from them one more time, pushing more viciously this time. I suddenly felt like my brain was going to implode, there were so many people crowded around me and they were all thinking about me. I could barely sort one thing from another in my brain but I heard every word of their thoughts. Still the crowd was unyielding. I was having trouble thinking straight, but I knew one thing: I had to get out of there. I drew my wand, they couldn't give me detention. This was a provoked attack.
Idiot. He's outnumbered. Pride at successful manipulation. Fear. "Look out guys, Black's gonna kill us all."
"He's gonna blow you to bits."
"You're not mad at us, are you Black?"
The last taunt was accompanied by a shove that nearly knocked me into the boy who'd pushed me over in the first place, a tall fifth year named Murphy. I tried to remember a hex I'd learned in my Defensive Magics course, but I couldn't concentrate properly with all the outside noise inside my mind and the spell wouldn't come.
Arrogance. "Well, Black, you gonna hex us or not?" said Murphy
I couldn't remember any spells at all. I started to panic. I just had to get out to a place where I could think properly, but I was trapped.
"Leave me alone." I said again, and I could tell my voice was higher pitched than usual and sort of thin sounding, like I wasn't breathing right.
"You're not scared, are you Black? You're the one with a wand, if you want us to leave you alone you can come and make us."
One more try at shoving my way out. I felt like I was suffocating on the thoughts invading my mind. Murphy made to push me back into the center of the little circle but I felt my arm speed out to hit him on the side of the face and he moved aside. I couldn't quite tell what I was doing. I just knew I had to get to some place where I could clear my head.
Fear. Regret. Black's finally snapped.
Astonishment. Holy Hippogriff, he's lost his marbles!
Pain. Anger. Panic. He hit me! He freaking hit me! I'm telling a teacher.
I don't really remember all that happened as I pushed out of the throng of students. By the time I was on the edge of the crowd no one tried to shove me back anymore. I do know that I kicked and punched and I think I might have even bitten someone before people realized that it was safer to just get out of my way. The closer I got to being a good distance from the other students though, the more people were thinking about me. The less noise there was outside my mind, the more there was inside. Finally I just leaned back against a wall and slid down until I was in a sitting position. I closed my eyes and tried to think.
The next day I was expelled from Flinn's School of Magic for attacking and injuring the other students. Leah was cross but determined when she met me in the Headmaster's Office. I kept trying to explain what had happened, about how the other students had crowded me in and wouldn't let me leave and how I hadn't meant to hurt anyone, but I had to get away from them. I couldn't quite describe to Professor Barrister the way it felt to have so many foreign thoughts inside your head that there was no room for your own, and how suffocating it was and how I had just gone into a blind panic. He insisted that no matter what the circumstances were I had attacked the other students without any real provocation.
"You have no right to expel him!" said Leah "Tim's always had to put up with being pushed around by the other students ever since we came here and you never saw fit to do anything to stop them. If it finally came to be too much so that he had to take matters into his own hands then I think it's your fault for not intervening sooner. You could have kept a better watch over the students and this never would have happened."
Impatience. Injured Pride. Pity. Professor Barrister leaned forwards and looked Leah straight in the eye. "Ms. Smith" he said to her, but I could tell it took him a second to remember to call her by her maiden name and not by Sirius's name. "I'm going to be very honest with you. Tim's been a concern to me ever since he first came here. I got a lot of letters from parents and I intercepted a lot of letters from parents that were meant for Tim. He's had people very worried, and while I do sympathize with you having to deal with his Subconscious Legilimency, I'd never hear the end of it if I let him stay after this."
Leah had that look in her eye like she wanted to hex Professor Barrister into little pieces, but she just said "Alright, fine. I'm not going to waste my time here. I guess it's just good you made your misguided expulsion near the end of the year anyways. I moved to Ireland so that Tim wouldn't have to be at Hogwarts while Sirius Black was at large. I wanted to keep him away from all this, but I'm beginning to think he would have been better off there. At least Albus Dumbledore is competent." She took me by the arm and in no time at all we were flooing back to our flat. Leaving me with the thought that after two very long years, I was going back to Hogwarts.
