Chapter 29
Professor McGonagall, Dumbledore and Snape all stood around Dorian's hospital bed and talking among themselves as to the best way to help Dorian because even after twenty four hours he hasn't spoken, moved or slept, just lay in the bed, his eyes blinking mechanically every four seconds in a catatonic state.
"So you searched his memories, saw him talking to himself in a mirror, the televisions the memories were being showed on all exploded and he was catatonic when you got out of his head?" Dumbledore asked curiously causing Snape to nod slowly. McGonagall was sitting next to the bed, holding Dorian's hand.
"As I told you before Headmaster, I believe he has what the muggles call Split Personality Disorder." Snape said causing McGonagall to look at them with a slight look of confusion.
"What are you getting at Severus?" McGonagall asked though Dumbledore answered before Snape had the chance.
"We believe that Severus seeing the memory and finding out that he has that particular mental disorder caused the personality's to fight and led to his catatonic state, I think the best course of action is to send Severus back into Dorian's mind and lock away the violent personality as a temporary measure to deal with this situation and bring Dorian back." Dumbledore said, it wasn't ideal but McGonagall couldn't come up with any better idea's so she nodded her agreement and moved away giving Snape access to enter Dorian's mind once again.
Dorian was staring at an identical version of himself, both he and the doppelganger were standing across from each other in a hazy field, the ground, the sky even the horizon couldn't be seen as the two stared each other down.
"Well that was a bit dramatic. If I didn't know any better I'd say you didn't want anyone to know about you." Dorian said to his doppelganger.
"I really didn't. Snape was greedy and searched too far into our memories."
Professor Snape stepped out of the haze and looked at the two boys curiously.
"Mr. St. James?" Snape asked only for both boys to face him and answer "Yes?" at the same time.
"Professor Dumbledore has sent me back into your mind to assist you in waking up." Snape said, explaining his presense only for the two boys to look at each other and shrug, it was odd as both boys were standing in front of each other yet were mirroring each others movements as though it were only one person in front of a mirror.
"This is going to be… difficult" Snape said and the Dorian on the right looked at him.
"Sorry Professor, What's going to be difficult?" Dorian asked.
"I believe you have Split Personality Disorder. Professor Dumbledore asked me to re-enter your mind and seal away the violent personality, the one that stabbed the man in your memory." Snape explained.
"Well that would be a neat trick." The Dorian on the left said with a laugh causing the Dorian on the right to crack a smile and nod in agreement.
"I feel as though I am missing something here." Snape said looking between the two identical boys who once again mirrored each others movements as they faced each other and smiled simultaneously.
"You honestly thought that I had a mental disorder?" Dorian on the right asked.
"That I was crazy enough to manifest an imaginary friend that I could blame things on?" Dorian on the left asked.
"Let us tell you Professor Snape."
"The thing you're missing."
"We're not crazy, we're twins." Both Dorian's answered at the same time, facing Snape with the quick turn of their head, making the already uncomfortable situation unnerving as the head turn was so sudden, and synchronized, the words matching perfectly, it was a bit creepy.
"How is this possible?" Snape asked curiously which caused both boys to shrug, unsure how they were twins sharing the same body but neither seemed upset about it nor concerned for any problems that might come because of it.
"Best as we could figure we were twins and one of us wasn't strong enough to survive so the weaker one got absorbed. I believe it's called 'Vanishing Twin Syndrome'."
"And courtesy of magic we both survived, our souls, consciousness, everything survived, just sharing a body." Dorian on the right said.
"And you expect me to believe this?" Snape asked incredulously.
"We don't really care what you believe."
"It's the truth."
"Well this is definitely difficult.. Do you plan on waking up any time soon?" Snape asked only for both boys to look at each other, the one on the left shrugged, the one on the right nodded before they both looked at Snape again.
"Give us a few." they said at the same time before directing their hands at Professor Snape, the misty haze that surrounded them swiled violently around Professor Snape to the point that he could no longer see the two boys and the deafening wind soon became too much of an annoyance for Snape so he left Dorian's mind and stared down at the catatonic state of the shared body laying in the bed, blinking mechanically every four seconds.
"Well?" Dumbledore asked.
"Couldn't seal his violent personality away because he doesn't have one." Snape said simply, ignoring the look of confusion from Dumbledore, McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey who were now all crowding Dorian's hospital bed. Snape sighed and started telling them everything he heard and saw in Dorian's mind.
The twin on the left looked at his brother and smiled.
"Better get going. I expect you'll have a lot of questions to answer."
"Is it wrong to say I'm not looking forward to it?"
"No, but out of the two of us you're the only one who could give a halfway decent explanation, I'd probably get pissed."
"You know, you're smart too. Why do you say things like you aren't?"
"As smart as you are you are just as aware as I am that being quick to anger is a sign of lack of intelligence according to scientists. You don't get angry often. You don't tell people you forgive them, but you show them."
"No idea what you're talking about."
"I'm in our fucking head, you think I don't see you when you turned into a rabbit and sat on Penny's lap at the lake? How about when you went to the Hufflepuff common room and curled up with her when she went to sleep?"
"Ok, enough of that."
"How about this, you let me be the angry one that handles our fights, you handle being nice to people and getting good grades and all that other shit?"
"You know, as violent as you are you're a bit of a softy." Dorian said jokingly only to get smacked upside the head by his brother.
"Fuck off, I have a soft spot for creatures and you and that's it. It's time for you to wake up, Aunt Min is probably worried."
"Shit, I might be safer staying asleep, she's likely to knock me right back to wherever this is." Dorian said causing the identical twins to laugh.
"Be seeing you."
Snape finished his recounting of events in Dorian's mind and they all looked back to Dorian laying in the bed. Dorian blinked a few times quickly, before looking around at everyone standing around his bed.
"Well hello there, how are all of you?" Dorian asked with a smirk before getting smacked on the shoulder by Professor McGonagall before she hugged him.
"Who am I talking to?" McGonagall asked curiously.
"Dorian?" Dorian said cheekily.
"Which one?" Dumbledore asked, a bit leery as even he hadn't heard of this happening before though mediwizardry wasn't something he researched even in his younger years.
"Umm…" Dorian said not sure how to answer.
Dorian answered all of the questions he was asked as best he could, Madame Pomfrey was extremely interested and wanted to run some more diagnostic tests on Dorian when they switched control over the body to see if there was a noticeable difference between the two, her argument was that she had never heard of something like this before and it was a great discovery for medical science. Dorian laughed a bit, at first not really wanting to go through more tests like some lab rat until Madame Pomfrey commented that if there was a difference between the two then it would change finer points of healing when it came to treating him as she expected him to be back in her hospital before he graduated and given his track record he agreed to let her run all the tests she wanted to next year. He didn't mention that Snape was going to try to make him Prefect therefore cutting his free time for her tests down greatly but she seemed happy.
Dorian spent his summer once again working when as much as he could, Professor Snape would come by in the afternoons on Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help Dorian with his occlumency and when Dorian and Snape were both happy with where he was as far as shielding his minds they focused on broomless flight.
"The lazy way would be to silently cast Ascendio, it would work for a time but its not truly flying without a broom." Snape said, explaining to Dorian after he asked if that was all broomless flight was, simply casting that specific spell.
"So this is going to take time." Dorian said a bit annoyed.
"If I have learned anything from you it is that you don't like things that are easy, if this were a simple task would you even be interested in learning it?" Snape asked
"Yes, like I said, I like flying, don't want any wood down there but my own though." Dorian said before laughing at his own crass joke only to find Snape wasn't laughing. That man never laughed.
"Yes, this will take time for you to learn now would you like to get started or are you going to keep making jokes?" Snape asked. Dorian simply nodded and focused on everything Snape was saying, writing notes where he could.
"Good. Now as a muggleborn this, like wandless magic should be a bit easier for you since you already know what to feel for. You are going to feel the magic flowing through you, allow that sensation to fill you to your very core." Snape started to explain and looked over Dorian shoulder at the notes he was writing only to find he couldn't read the notes, it wasn't that Dorian had messy handwriting, he was writing in another language that looked like stick figures for a moment.
"What language are you writing in Mr. St. James?" Snape asked.
"Japanese" Dorian responded simply.
Snape looked a bit shocked and turned to Professor McGonagall who had just entered the room with some tea.
"Are you aware that he writes notes in Japanese?" Snape asked, genuinely impressed at the simple yet effective way of keeping prying eyes from examining your work.
"Japanese, French, Dutch, Russian, he speaks quite a few languages and writes notes in them." McGonagall said proudly though to her it was commonplace as out of all the teachers she has dealt with him the most and knew most of his tricks. Snape looked back at Dorian, fascinated that the boy before him while seeming not to care or try to get good grades but still managed to be in the top five of his year had a different method of learning. He learned everything that was required by school standards but unless he was interested in the subject he didn't really try, those that he was interested in, school mandated or not he turned his full focus to until he no longer had anything to learn from it.
"I know, it's quite something. Now do you see why I said he might just be your favorite student?" McGonagall asked teasingly, Snape however could only nod his agreement.
"I fear this lesson will need to be cut short however, we have to go to the school so we can put forth the names of our choices for next years prefects and listen to any changes in the curriculum." Snape said to Dorian who set down his fountain pen and looked at Snape and McGonagall.
"Alright, have fun with that. I'm going to go to the Three Broomsticks." Dorian said simply as he didn't feel like making dinner and knew from experience that Dumbledore and the house elves provided the staff with dinner every time this meeting happened as it was a lengthy meeting so he usually wound up at the three broomsticks during the meeting anyway.
Dorian set his freshly scrawled notes neatly on his desk before grabbing his satchel and putting it on before walking up to Professor McGonagall and giving her a hug.
"See you later Aunt Min." Dorian said with a smile and started to walk away when McGonagall grabbed the strap of his magically enhanced leather satchel.
"Will you ever cease to amaze me Mr. St. James?" McGonagall asked with a smile.
"Yes I will." Dorian said cheekily and received a playful smack to the back of his head by McGonagall before he left out of the cottage and walked down the street towards the Three Broomsticks. His guardian and his head of house watched him as he went.
"That boy will change the face of the wizarding world one day." Snape said, truly believing his own words.
"Only if he wants to." McGonagall replied before they apparated to the edge of the school grounds and walked towards the castle to get the meeting underway.
The Hogwarts staff had all gathered and were talking and catching up with talk of all that they had done during the summer break before getting down to business and talking with Professor Dumbledore about changes to staff, curriculum etc., before long they got to the prefect selection. Dumbledore was quite happy with the list his heads of house had provided him until he got to Snapes recommendations. He fully agreed with Fiona's name as she was a first rate witch who had never gotten into trouble and would be a good example for younger students, however he furrowed his brow when he saw Dorian was recommended for the position.
"I apologize Severus but do you really think Mr. St. James would make a good prefect?" Dumbledore asked, immediately feeling a hole being burnt into the side of his head by Professor McGonagall.
"Yes I do Headmaster, He for all his faults is a very talented wizard, he is resilient and highly intelligent. Unfortunately those are not the reasons I have recommended him." Snape started to explain knowing all the other staff were now looking at him to see why he had suggested Dorian.
"I have recommended Mr. St. James due to the fact that the rest of Slytherin house fears him." Snape said simply.
"And you believe that should be rewarded?" Dumbledore asked curiously.
"Not necessarily, Mr. St. James is a muggleborn therefore it will be difficult for him to reach any real position of power due to the pureblood nepotism in the ministry should he decide to work for the ministry and honestly that might be the best job for him, so being Prefect would be a great help for his future regardless of his career. That said Slytherin like the ministry is run by pureblood nepotism, the students have their own hierarchy, Mr. St. James has never cared about how his fellow students see or think of him meaning they cannot throw out some family name and have him shrink from his responsibilities, nor is he afraid to go head to head with them for rule breaking. As smart as he is, as good as he is in a duel his housemates fear him, I witnessed myself that he held the entire common room at attention without attacking him all without a wand while he dealt with two other students, one of which was the former female prefect. Fear is a great tool for learning when used correctly and Mr. St. James has never used his power for anything more than to help others or simply be left alone." Snape said knowing that every eye in the room was now on him. They couldn't argue with the man as he had told the truth, Dorian was powerful but he had never abused that power, people feared him but he was perfectly content to be left alone so most other students simply left him alone.
"I cannot argue with your logic Severus but this year will be a trial run for Mr. St. James, nothing more, if he does well he can continue his role as prefect for the remainder of his education here at Hogwarts however if he does poorly this year he will not be considered for the position again." Dumbledore said, getting a nod from Snape, Snape getting a nod from McGonagall and everyone clapping that the meeting was finally over.
During dinner McGonagall was speaking with her colleagues and looked at Snape and smiled.
"I would like to thank you Severus, Mr. St. James has had a tough time since he arrived and since before I met him, I think he'll do quite well as prefect." McGonagall said cheerily.
"Not that you're biased towards the boy or anything." Professor Sprout said jokingly earning a laugh from Professor Flitwick, McGonagall herself, even Snape cracked a smile of amusement.
"I heard that you have been teaching the boy other things during the summer months Professor McGonagall, that he has side projects. What all has he learned?" Flitwick asked curiously.
"Well he speaks quite a few languages, writes notes in the different languages, one of the first things he wanted to learn was wandless and non-verbal magic and I'd say he has become quite adept at both. He had an interest in becoming an animagus but after researching it on his own and finding out that if it was done incorrectly he could be caught in a state somewhere between human and animal permanently so he stopped asking about that, He was studying and practicing the Patronus charm for a while." McGonagall said proudly listing the achievements of her ward.
"He has completed the Patronus research. His patronus is a snake, oddly enough he is terrified of them, he was frozen in fear when I saw him in one of the abandoned classrooms simply staring at it." Snape said not thinking much of it when he spoke, he was simply trying to state the Dorian was able to cast a fully corporeal patronus but having been trying to be polite to Hagrid he had taken some of the half giants brandy and was a bit more impaired than he thought.
Dorian had walked from the cottage to The Three Broomsticks and grabbed a seat at the bar, leaving the tables open for the other customers in groups and ordered his usual fish and chips and butterbeer eating happily in silence while listening to the other customers talking. After he finished his food he paid for his meal and left a large tip as usual even though he got discounted food from Madame Rosmerta for working there every once in a while. After he left The Three Broomsticks he walked the streets of Hogsmeade for a while before making his way back to the cottage so he could go back over his notes and practice broomless flight. He made his way to his room and sat on the floor and closed his eyes so he wouldn't have any distractions and started to focus on the feeling of magic filling every part of his body instead of just his fingers or hands, he felt the feeling of magical power growing inside of himself but it didn't fully envelope his body, it barely filled his chest. He was going to have to ask Snape if that was normal though he assumed it was since things like this took practice and time, he would simply have to keep at it like the Patronus.
Dorian spent the last couple of weeks of Summer practicing every night, meditating to try to fill his body with magical power, as he suspected Professor Snape confirmed that it was going to take time and that he wasn't going to feel his entire body surge with magical power for a while. As he practiced more and morehe felt more and more of his body filling with magical power. By the time that Pretty Bird arrived with the list of his school supplies Dorian was able to feel magic surging in his chest, arms, stomach and hips. Dorian kissed his owls head lightly and gave his owl a piece of bacon from his plate and read through his school supplies and saw that he had been chosen as the male Prefect for Slytherin and that he would need to ride on the Hogwarts Express to meet the other prefects, Head Boy and Head Girl and assist with the first years and keeping order on the train in general.
"Fuck all kinds of duck.." Dorian said getting a look from Professor McGonagall.
"What's wrong?" McGonagall asked.
"I have to ride the train.." Dorian said simply causing McGonagall to laugh and shake her head.
"When would you like to go and get your school supplies?" She asked.
"I can go get them whenever unless you feel the need to babysit me." Dorian said cheekily.
"Considering that you have gone to get your own supplies before I think you are fully capable of getting your supplies on your own." McGonagall said with a smile since she was so proud of him for becoming Prefect. She still remembered the kind but crass little boy she had seen purchase a fish sandwich for what he believed was a stray cat when he had nothing, she had witnessed everything he had been through since he first stepped through the halls of Hogwarts.
Dorian was actually a bit surprised that she had said she would allow him to go on his own, he knew she was upset when he went on his own last time. Dorian however was not about to complain as he had a plan for a side trip down Knockturn Alley once more to go to the tattoo shop again, he just needed to figure out what all he wanted to get.
After a few days Dorian decided to make his way to Diagon Alley to pick up his school supplies and maybe take a stroll through Muggle London for a bit again. Dorian had breakfast with McGonagall as always and left using their fireplace as she knew where he was going and didn't need to sneak through the fireplace at one of his jobs. The emerald flames consumed Dorian for a moment before he saw the inside of the Leaky Cauldron and once again made a beeline for the brick wall to tap around the missing brick so he could go into the alley without having to talk to Tom or anyone as he still hadn't forgiven them for the letter they had sent his first year. The Cauldron was a bit dead as far as business so he would have to move quickly, but he wasn't quick enough when he felt someone's hand on his shoulder.
"Dorian, why are you walking through here without saying 'Hello'?" Eloise asked curiously, sounding a bit hurt.
"Because I got into some trouble at school and received a letter from Tom saying to not come back for the summer, figured I wasn't welcome back and unfortunately when I floo to the Diagon Alley it drops me here. Since I'm not welcome here if you wouldn't mind terribly I have school stuff to get, I promise to use one of the fireplaces somewhere else to get back home." Dorian said coldly, the older witch looked at Dorian a bit hurt, only a few years ago he had been a small scrawny, underfed boy who had always been so happy to help out around the pub and a misunderstanding had led to him feeling as though he wasn't welcome.
"Dorian please hear me out." Eloise said.
"Fine, but walk and talk, I don't feel comfortable in here." Dorian said and tapped his wand in the rhythmic pattern around the missing brick and walking forward before the bricks had fully settled into place. He didn't know if Eloise was going to follow him into the alley, and wasn't too surprised when she stayed in the pub and didn't follow him into the Alley. Dorian made his way directly to Madame Malkins to get fitted for new robes and picked up some new shoes and socks as well, putting the newly acquired robes, shoes and socks into his satchel before heading to Flourish and Blott's making his way through the book store grabbing all the required books not wanting to waste more time than necessary in the bookstore as he couldn't think of any subject he wanted to research and paid for his books, not even looking Thaddeus in the eyes as he set the books on the counter and paid for them, Thaddeus was so engrossed in his book that he didn't even know that it was Dorian until he had to hand back the change from the purchase, the shock of selling Dorian the books without knowing it was him left him speechless which Dorian was happy for as he made his way out of the bookstore and finished up shopping for his school supplies.
Dorian finished up shopping for the supplies within an hour before he made his way towards Knockturn Alley and disappeared into the seedier part of the shopping district and made a beeline down the Alley, ignoring all the other witches and wizards who eyed him curiously before he slipped into the tattoo shop. The tattoo shop owner was drawing something, ignoring the ringing bell until he finished up his latest drawing when he did he looked up.
"You were in here before weren't you?" the tattoo artist asked.
"Yup yup, told you I'd be back. I need some ink." Dorian said with a smirk.
"Like I said before, you're underage, any work I do is going to be extra." the man said.
"Fine, but I won't be let you price gouge me too badly." Dorian said.
"You wont let me huh?" the man asked trying to stare Dorian down. Dorian however didn't back down or flinch.
"If you do I will burn this fucker to the ground." Dorian said calmly and evenly. The tattoo artist stared at Dorian for a moment longer before cracking a grin.
"Fair enough, what would you like?" The man asked.
Dorian pulled out two pieces of Parchment, one was considerably larger than the other. The first piece of parchment was a silhouette of a rabbit.
"I want something like that between my shoulder blades." Dorian said before unrolling the larger piece of parchment to reveal the Norse death prayer.
"I would like that on my left rib cage but possibly with a different font if possible." Dorian said.
The tattoo artist looked over them both and nodded.
"The rabbit is gonna be easy and quick, the prayer though, that'll take a while." the man said honestly, already pulling out sheets that he could draw on for the tattoos, the sheets looked a bit like wax paper to Dorian but knew it wasn't so simple.
"What colors were you thinking?" the man asked.
"Just all black, keep it simple." Dorian said honestly.
"No imagination." the man said teasingly as he quickly drew the outline of a rabbit and shaded it in entirely with black ink before pulling another sheet and writing the Norse death prayer in old English style writing. Like the man said, where the rabbit only took a few minutes the prayer took aver an hour.
"Alright, shirt off and get on the chair." the man said.
Dorian took off his shirt and felt the man touch the rabbit silhouette between his shoulder blades and soon Dorian started to feel intense heat, it was almost like he was five years old again and feeling the desert heat but focused only on one specific spot. After spending most of his life in the much cooler climate of the UK it wasn't exactly a comfortable sensation but it was a familiar one.
"I'm impressed a lot of people at least flinch on their first." The mas said before pulling the sheet of paper from Dorian's back, the ink that once was there was now devoid of any ink whatsoever.
"I'm not most people." Dorian said simply.
"Got me there. Have a look tell me what you think." The man said and handed Dorian a mirror so he could check out the tattoo between his shoulder blades, the silhouette looked great but the area around the ink looked almost sunburned.
"Nice, let's get the rib cage over with." Dorian said as he set the mirror down.
"This is gonna hurt more than the last one." the man warned.
"Ooo!" Dorian said sarcastically
The tattoo artist laughed and placed the sheet against Dorian's ribs as instructed before aiming his wand at the sheet, the tip of the mans wand glowed orange and Dorian felt the heat once again though more intensely and over a wider area but once again Dorian didn't flinch, wince, squint or blink much to the tattoo artists surprise. After a couple of minutes the man removed the sheet from Dorian's ribs and Dorian once again looked it over in the mirror before nodding his approval and putting his shirt back on as well as his satchel.
"That'll be 60 Galleons." the man said only for Dorian to look at him.
"Wanna rethink that?" Dorian asked
"What, all the effort I put in, the cost of the ink, the fact that you are underage, it adds up quick. If you want we can take it to the Ministry." the tattoo artists said, usually it worked as a threat against younger people that came in for a tattoo because they wanted to defy their parents.
"By all means call them, guarantee that the fine you get will cost you much more than I just did." Dorian said calling the mans bluff.
"Fine, what do you think is fair?" the tattoo artist asked asked condescendingly.
"Considering black market portkeys run about 30 galleons I'd say 35 galleons would be fair." Dorian said.
"That's almost half!" the man argued.
"I could always just burn this fucking place down like I said." Dorian said, flicking his wrist, dropping his wand from his forearm holster into his hand and starting the tattoo artist down much the same way he had tried to stare Dorian down when he entered the store.
"Fine, 35 and we'll call it good." The man relented angrily.
"Good." Dorian said reaching into his satchel and pulling out 35 galleons and setting them on the counter.
"I'd say it was a pleasure doing business but that would be a lie." the man said as Dorian left the shop.
Authors note: Alright so I have some explaining to do, I know I missed updating the story last week. Here's the scoop and I'm gonna give it to you. So I bought a prebuilt PC from a store and had problems with it since day one, well the SSD finally crapped out and died and that had the OS, writer document that had all my notes, research etc on it. Took it to a local repair shop and just barely got the PC back on Friday and have been trying to redo all my notes and stuff off of memory. Hope you enjoy the chapter, hopefully I don't have any more problems with this computer so I don't have any more interruptions in posting, if I do I know what might cause the disruptions and I will warn you all before hand if I'll be late posting an update.