100 followers (including A03) has successfully flattered me into publishing this. Enjoy, and thank you.
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Hours passed, as Harry lay collapsed on the floor. He wasn't unaware, precisely, but he was unconscious.
Harry knew he was dreaming – except it wasn't quite a dream. He felt certain, somehow, that his surroundings – a great misty expanse – were not only absolutely real, but also inside his own head.
He didn't know how, but –
Well of course, this was the first stage of Occlumency, though it was different than what he was used to, and it certainly had never been this much of a mess -
Occlumency.
Slowly, Harry thought over that word, his thoughts as sluggish as a sloth crawling through a swamp. It was a new concept, but not. New? He frowned, wondering why he'd thought the Art new; it had been sixty years since he first learned of it, that was hardly –
Something was wrong Harry realised panic fluttering in his heart. Something was very wrong. He, They, he.
He gripped his head as a vicious migraine struck, obliterating all three of his thought streams. Pain was all he knew, oh Morgana but it hurt – his mind was splitting at the seams.
His name was Harry James Potter. Harry held onto that thought with a desperate sense of need, feeling his uncertainties lessen with every repetition. He was Harry James Potter. Harry Potter. Harry. Harry. Harry Potter. Harry James Potter.
Yes, that was right.
That first solid thought formed an excellent foundation for his next one; he was eleven years old.
Harry James Potter, eleven years old.
After that, he wasn't too sure about the rest. Something was wrong, he knew that much, Morgana's wand but he was so confused.
Who was Morgana? Why was he thinking about wands?
"Don't you know anything, Mudblood?" The blonde boy sneered; an ugly expression made uglier by the sheer amount of smugness the other boy's magic was projecting. "Morgana was the Queen of Avalon – the first purely magical country. She was the first Animagus, the first Healer and the Mother of the Dark Arts. Honestly, why they let your sort in when you don't even know that." The blonde laughed, mocking, and Tom felt a helpless humiliating rage as others followed, even the Professor smiled, his magic full of contempt and Tom hated it, hated them. He'd show them, he'd show them all.
That had not been his memory. Harry knew that, distantly, but others crowded in, drawn by the recollection. It felt like they were trying to drown him in memories, eagerly trying to shove themselves down his throat. The blonde boy – there were hundreds of memories of him, the mist rushed in, pressing them all on Harry. Morgana – he's studied so much about her. Avalon – oh the possibilities. Animagery – a proper wizarding talent. Healing – there were thousands of memories associated with Healing, all trying to drown Harry in their remembered pain. Tom was voracious to know it all.
Screaming and clawing at his face, Harry shoved all of it away.
It went.
Harry groaned as his head throbbed, the ocean of mist ringing around him, thick and wild, it covered as far as the eye could see apart from a tiny island of clear space around him. It pulsed red in time with the pain - as if he needed the extra warning – and swirled miles high into the sky before crashing down in ethereal tidal waves.
Alright; the memories – and they were definitely memories – had been pushed away for now, but Harry knew they wouldn't stay away long. It wasn't natural for memories to drift free, they were tied down, bound by a thousand thousand connections to other memories, layered and crossed and layered again until they built a tapestry of life.
But that was OK, Harry took a deep breath and concentrated. His name was Harry James Potter, and he was eleven years old.
He almost expected his own memories to come and try to kill him now, but of course, they didn't. They were already squared away by dint of him living, growing and thinking. They'd settled into a pattern already, a nice, stable pattern. One that was currently drowned by mist somewhere out there.
Stable memories meant accessible. He could clearly remember the important bits; it was his birthday. He'd been sleeping on the floor of that hut; there had been an almighty storm, a voice – and a snake.
The snake!
Harry's hand flew to his throat, but of course, there was nothing there. Ra had, eww it was so gross, but Harry made himself think about Ra. Ra had tried to bite him? But he'd jumped into Harry's mouth – he gagged, but he was too used to keeping food inside his stomach under duress to actually throw up – and then Harry had collapsed.
So this was all due to Ra?
Harry frowned. How could a snake do this to his mind? Had he been poisoned? Some sort of venom?
No, it wasn't something so…muggle, what a strange word… as poison. There had been a battle. Harry strained to remember it plainly but it was all so confusing. It was a battle, but it had all been within him. There had been …three sides? Yes, that was it. The pain in his skull eased slightly as Harry literally thought his way through the problem.
Ra had tried to possess him. Feeling rather queasy, Harry forced himself to continue that train of thought. Once Ra – with his really, really sharp teeth – had gotten inside Harry, something else had happened in his head.
The battle.
Harry shuddered. It was bad enough that he had nothing to his name – but at least he'd always had the privacy of his mind to resent his circumstances. Ra had tried to take that last sanctuary away, and Harry wouldn't forget or forgive in a hurry.
But something within Harry that wasn't Harry had fought back and it had been damn good at it.
Voldemort, it had thought of itself as Voldemort.
The two similar but completely different entities had fought each other. Ra had wanted to possess Harry for himself, and Voldemort had wanted to protect Harry to preserve his own little hideaway, which had also been in Harry, so he'd fought the intruder.
Feeling really queasy Harry slowly came to accept the idea that he'd had someone else inside him all along and hadn't noticed.
The sheer revulsion settled a fair bit when Harry realised that it didn't matter; he'd won. Only Harry remained. The other two were… dissolved? Rendered down into their most basic components?
No longer a threat. Yes, he liked that thought. It was much simpler. They were gonegonegone so he could stop feeling sick.
That still left him with a large problem though. His mind was strange and he didn't know why. All he did know was that he didn't have much time, so he continued remembering what he could of the battle. He needed to know what it had done to him to know how to fix it. That made enough sense that the mist retreated a little more in the wake of logic.
That wave of gold had been magic. Harry knew magic existed, because Voldemort had known that it had existed. Both Ra and Voldemort had fallen to Harry's magic – they'd been absorbed by it.
Slowly, it began to make a strange kind of sense.
Harry's magic had destroyed both Ra's and Voldemort's consciousness, but it had been too…weak… to get rid of everything. No, no wait, Harry paid attention to his instincts. That didn't seem quite right. That magic had been anything but weak. It had been strong, shaped, and full of will, intent, and purpose.
It had been planned.
The Magic – not Harry's magic – had been smart. It had seen the options, and chosen the best one. It had felt like it was weighing, measuring, judging. That bright golden wave had destroyed the minds behind the powers that attacked him, but in it's wake it had deliberately left the flotsam and jetsam of memory.
Why? Harry didn't know. Nevertheless, he did sense that it was for his own good, somehow. That was The Magic's purpose.
He did not mind that The Magic must have been within him all this time too. The Magic was …natural, good, and kind. In fact, Harry felt rather better about his life in general knowing he hadn't been quite so alone as he'd first thought.
Why it had left a snake wrapped around his spine, Harry couldn't fathom, but maybe as that wasn't inside his head, The Magic hadn't been able to do anything about it? No, that didn't make sense either; The Magic was powerful enough to affect the physical, a much easier objective than the mental, so there had to have been a reason if it was as intelligent as Harry knew it was.
A tiny drop of mist drifted closer to Harry. Harry eyed it suspiciously, wary of drowning again in insanity, but it was small. Harry could deal with it when it was so small, surely and it had to have broken off for a reason. He held up a palm and let the drop of mist settle onto his skin and sink inside of him.
Oh yes, that was right. Ra was a Goa'uld, and a Goa'uld came with health benefits like a lifespan of thousands of years. Yes that made sense now. The Magic had left it because it was Good For Harry. The…Goa'uld… was just an extra organ. Yes, that sounded much more palatable.
Even if it had really sharp teeth. Sitting pretty inside his brain.
That wasn't something Harry wanted to mess with unless he wanted people cutting into his grey matter to get it out. Was that even possible? Gruesome mental pictures were all too easy to summon of knives and blood and muggle machinery.
No. It was an extra organ. That was it. One that put something called Naquadah into his blood stream and healed him of everything. Indeed, why should he want it gone? It was a little creepy, but quick healing sounded very useful. Vernon did have a temper after all, and there were only so many dislocations his shoulder could take before it would refuse to pop back in the socket all together. He was strong now, very strong; Strong enough to throw a grown man across the room; Strong enough to stop Dudley from hurting him.
As long as he didn't go insane tonight, Harry would be a very happy boy, all things considered.
Harry was a survivor at heart, and one with quick reflexes and good instincts. As such, he swiftly noted that he'd thought about Ra, and the relevant explanatory memory had come to him from the chaos, and Harry had made sense of it and it had gone, making the chaos around him a fraction of a fraction of a per cent smaller.
He thought about the chaos. It really was quite a mess. Harry needed to organise it – Aunt Petunia hated mess and made Harry hate it more –it should be neatly ordered.
A stream of misty substance broke itself away from the enormous ring that bordered Harry's tiny clearing of sanity and helpfully weaselled its way over to his outstretched hand. It was much bigger than the Goa'uld fact file, but it was something Harry knew he needed to know. It just had that sort of feel to it, oily and tough but mysterious too.
Occlumency, Harry realised as the mist melted into his palm, yes, yes, of course, that was right.
Occlumency was the magic of the mind. It gave a wizard conscious control over their brain; it was horrifically dangerous if misused, neither muggle nor wizard understood enough of the brain to know what would cause an accidental lobotomy or worse, but once learned it gave you control of yourself. A talent any self-respecting wizard needs.
With Occlumency, you could make yourself focus, you could set aside emotion, you could cut off input from four senses to concentrate on the fifth, or cut off one sense altogether. You could forcibly memorise information and recall it perfectly later, but it was the side effects of Occlumency that were the real benefit. Greater mental awareness was a passive trait, and so a wizard who had studied Occlumency would never be caught unaware by a subtle spell or potion, or even a magical being's natural influence.
To say nothing of the defence against Legilimency – which, Harry thought with irritation, would have been very handy to know before someone and something had tried to and succeeded at possessing him.
Well that settled it. This was what he needed to fix this mess. Now, where to begin?
Voldemort had discovered it after eavesdropping on some of his peers, Harry recalled vaguely. If they could do it, he had to do it too, and better. It hadn't been difficult to find a few books on it, he hadn't had a tutor, but he'd never needed one to thrive.
Olsen's book had had the best introduction, speaking of how to relax, how to empty the mind of all extraneous thoughts until you could sense your magic dancing within you, and follow it to your mindscape and the subconscious. That was step one.
Harry decided he must have accidentally skipped that step somehow, and proceeded to consider Selwyn's caution on not changing anything of your 'metaphysical interface of the subconscious' until you understood how it lay naturally so as not to cause any damage you couldn't fix.
This was all novice level. Harry scowled, impatient. He'd done this sixty years ago! Why was he bothering with this pointless revision. He had greater things to work on! He needed to –
Harry James Potter. Eleven years old.
Harry groaned and clutched at his head as the mist retreated again, resentful and looming. Did he not know that the mist knew no boundary? It was supposed to suffocate all it reached. Harry looked at it, forced his eyes away and grimaced. Well he was going to have to skip stage two as well it seemed, he couldn't see what this mindscape business was supposed to look like under all this mist, and the mist wasn't going anywhere until he'd squared it away with Occlumency. He'd just have to make it up as he went along and hope for the best.
Step three: enrich mind with magic.
Harry supposed that if he'd done step one, he'd understand that better, but both Selwyn and Olsen had agreed, and Voldemort concurred, that magic was within you, all of you. With the proper focus and training, you could make a channel or widen an existing one in the mind, giving you the power to make permanent changes without the need for the initial deep meditative state.
It was a good thing that Harry already knew what his magic was supposed to feel like. When The Magic had flooded his mind, Harry had been there, he'd seen how it had moved. More, those tiny flickers of emerald green fire- those had felt like him.
Bright green fire, as comforting as the thousand hugs he'd never known, as soul chilling as the cruel laughter that haunted his dreams. It was the fire within that warmed him when the Dursley's locked him outside; it was the cool hand on his forehead when he lay fevered and shivering in his cupboard; it gave him wings when he needed to fly and it would give him peace when he needed to rest.
It came as he beckoned, as it always did for children, filling Harry with light and life. He felt like a god with it dancing through his soul – and it was easy, so very easy, to entice a few sparks (Just a little, murmured Voldemort, he was fourteen and panting on the floor of the Chamber, just a drop, precise, careful, around not through) up into his mind.
The spark became a river of green that eagerly accepted the new channel, running to make a moat around his mind, surgically precise to avoid that accidental lobotomy. It was Voldemort's craftiness and finesse that guided his effort, carefully anchoring the stream, layering it seven ways back and forth and around and over and under, reconnecting it down to the heart smoothly without creating a leak or a reservoir until it was a perfect weave of protection.
Instantly, Harry felt calmer. The pain became manageable, the red throb slowed to a pinkish tap-dance of a migraine and Harry took a deep breath, pleased with himself. Voldemort had taken months to work out how to do that safely the first time. Already The Magic had been proved right. This would be good for him eventually. (He'd show them all.)
Memories did not exist in a void. Each one was a piece of a puzzle, a torn tatter of the tapestry. Harry didn't just know what Voldemort had known; he'd felt it too. Lived it as him, and all of the memories of studying Occlumency, practicing it, talking about it, and even the beginnings of Legilimency all crowded inside his head, remembered.
Harry pushed them away, it added to his pain somewhere out there, but at this point any addition was negligible another drop hardly mattered when the damn was bursting.
Step four was supposed to be the hard bit. Re-organising what you found into something more accessible, but still in the pattern that was you; The pattern that you found in step two but was currently languishing and dying under the mist.
Improvise then, Harry decided. He liked that word. It sounded much more confident than guess.
Absorbing those earlier fragments had removed them. Maybe he should absorb the rest too? That would clear the land, and Harry would be able to see the pattern he needed to follow…
No.
Ra was responsible for most of the mist. A few weeks (fifty four years) worth of memory from Voldemort, not even anything emotionally intense, just reading, and Harry had started calling himself Voldemort and thinking like him. If Harry absorbed all of what Ra had left to offer… he'd become Ra. Ra Two? Ra the Second?
Harry frowned, something was off about that thought – but he'd already forgotten it or lost it to the mist. Something.
Where was he?
Memories wanted to be connected.
Harry reached a hand out to the mist, thinking only of mind-magic. If he was going to do this, he might as well gather all of the resources he could first. Then he could upgrade his decision to a guesstimation. He liked that word too.
A wisp of mist the size of a scarf streamed out from the mass, curling around his wrist and snaking all the way up to his shoulder, sinking into his skin with a pleased hiss.
( "Whose better now, pureblood," Tom spat, sneering into the face of the prefect whose eyes were wide with alarm. It was supposed to be a joke. Just a bit of fun with the mudblood. A minor compulsion – wouldn't have harmed anyone –stop, please, I-)
Yes, he'd have to construct shields, Harry thought. Subtle ones were the best of course, but he had no need to hide anymore. The traps would be vicious he'd –
(Dumbledore's eyes were too blue. Voldemort tasted lemons and knew the wizard was in his mind, but he couldn't find him, couldn't stop it. "The Restricted Section again, Tom? What was is this time?")
First if he couldn't absorb the mist, he'd have to reshape it, weave an artificial tapestry, make it his.
(Voldemort looked into the eyes of his guide to the Pyramids, he didn't have time to learn hieroglyphs. He'd just take what he needed; by tomorrow, he'd be ready to start his real studies. Honestly, this was so much easier. Why didn't everyone just do this? But it was impossible to fathom the stupidity of the world.)
But what pattern to use?
Ra was from space, Harry thought dazedly. Space was full of space, lots of room for a bit of spring-cleaning. It seemed perfectly logical to Harry to use something as familiar as the galaxy (my galaxy) as a base. It would do for a guesstimation.
Thinking of Ra – Harry held out his hand to the mist once more, and thought about the brain, and Ra, who was currently physically inside his brain – but that bit he still wasn't thinking about.
A tendril of mist about the size of a flag drifted closer. Harry made himself absorb that one. All the films said aliens were smart, so Ra probably knew a lot more about the brain than even Voldemort did. Of course, Harry thought Ra was only a filthy muggle, but it would be Harry who was the stupid one if he did something permanent before getting all the information he could.
Ra knew a lot.
(Warm, soft, buzzing, Ra slid his body inside, wrapping himself tenderly about the spine, tasting the chemicals that zapped through his fins. It was no Unas, this strange creature, but it was so warm.)
The brain was so complicated. There were billions of cells, strange machines called glands, chemicals that always came in pairs and - Harry felt dizzy. Ra didn't think like a human, Merlin's staff, Ra didn't even think in English.
(There were dozens and dozens of new sensations. The Unas had been primitive in comparison. The creature's mind was so complex. Fear tasted sweet over his mandibles, a second of excitement and his body lit up for hours. And sex, oh, no wonder the warm bloods mated so often without issue. Ra felt like he was flying. He needed more.)
Harry jerked himself free, blushing as red as a tomato. That was, that was, he flushed again, feeling jittery and that if his eyes got any wider they'd fall out.
How many more memories like that were in there?
No! No he wasn't going to think about it. It was disgusting, icky, and wrong and Aunt Petunia would murder him so dead.
Harry launched himself into his task. He reached for a droplet of mist but didn't absorb it. Instead, he looked into it; Ra was walking down the ramp onto his new planet. (The battle had been short. These creatures knew nothing of war.)
Harry reshaped the memory, and transformed it from Ra-flavoured to something a little more… Harry.
With a thought, the mist became a tiny glowing star and Harry let it hang in the air, slowly orbiting his torso as he caught the next bit of wisp, keeping his newly shaped memories away from the raw ones.
Keeping certain ideas together for the sake of order, Harry crafted entire galaxies, drop by drop.
After the first hundred stars, he started adding colours for variety. Once he had a little more space as the mist shrunk, he made entire star systems including dwarfs, super giants, and pulsars. He made separate galaxies, some elliptical, some spiral or spiral barred. Then, he had to get more creative, forming individual solar systems that orbited each star, full of planets. Most planets had a moon or several. Some he gave asteroid belts, comets, and clouds of coloured gas until he had an entire, vast, universe.
Then it was done.
The mist was gone, and his killer migraine with it, revealing a very earthy tapestry of thought and magic. Apparently, Harry's natural state was more like a small garden, with wilted roses and dead grass. It looked very much like Petunia's garden.
Harry glanced down at it, critically, and then up to the grand display above. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the roses drop another inch, a shade browner, and a handful of petals fell.
Harry caught them more out of habit than intent, memories of the cupboard he saw when he peered inside. No wonder the roses were dying, with that sort of nourishment. Harry's gaze was enchanted upwards by the light of his galaxy and Harry thought the view was rather ruined by this dead patch right in the middle of a nice bit of void.
It just wasn't tidy to have two different themes in one mind.
With a shrug, Harry reshaped the petals in his hand into a tiny asteroid, a pitiful one, all burned and pockmarked, and set it to orbiting around him whilst he dug the rest up.
Fistfuls of dead grass, torn roughly from the ground became the Earth, the roses the Sun, and the soil filled out the Solar System quite nicely.
Yes, that was better, Harry thought, admiring the finished product. He laid back on the nothingness between the Moon and Mars, and felt a curious mix of exhaustion and pleasure.
The exhaustion he was used to, it was the pleasure that was odd.
He deserved it of course, he had no idea how much time has passed outside, but even if it had taken place at the speed of thought, it had still been hard work, and the end result was as vastly exquisite as it was problematic.
He'd seen, if not absorbed, all of the memories he'd been…gifted with.
Magic existed. Aliens existed.
Voldemort had believed the magical world to be stumbling towards grave danger. Dumbledore's influence and his policies combined with wizarding arrogance and a lack of understanding of muggles was already a problem. One incident and they'd be exposed en masse leading to chaos. If they just listened…
Ra had an entire empire of humans relying on him to defend their worlds from other Goa'ulds, to supply then with vital off-world resources and provide symbiotes for them to live. The fragile stability of the galaxy depended upon his continuing presence.
Harry had for better or for worse inherited the lot.
"Fuck me."