AN: A little bit of a more-fluffy chapter this time. Quarantine is still in effect in my state, so I'm not exactly going many places.
Harry focused himself on his breathing.
In...
Out...
In...
Out...
Don't think.
Just focus on making the next breath perfect.
In...
Out...
And the next one; perfectly in... perfectly out...
In...
Out...
Clear your mind.
Nothing exists to concern outside of the breathing.
In...
"Morning, Harry!"
*snrk!*
Harry choked on air as he was abruptly thrust out of his 'happy cloud of tranquility'. He looked over from his bed to the beaming, clueless wonder in the neighboring bed.
"Weasley." He greeted, tonelessly.
"Watcha up to, mate? You're just breathing really weirdly with your eyes closed." The redhead asked, scuffing off his pajamas and messily tossing on his robes.
"Nothing, Weasley." He rolled his eyes. Since coming to Hogwarts, he didn't really need to meditate too often to control his magic. Learning spells and acquiring a wand seemed to let him vent it safely without worrying about destroying his room anymore.
Still, even then, a habit acquired is hard to drop. Especially one that was admittedly very calming and relaxing.
Plus, it provided a brief respite from headaches surrounding him since the bloody troll fiasco. Barely an hour after he was dropped off at the dormitories, the entirety of the school seemed to know he was involved. The next morning, he heard 'troll' every other word whispered in the Great Hall. It had been almost five days, now, and it was still the hottest topic for gossips, admirers, and jealousy.
Almost completely overshadowing some other news that Professor Quirrell had "mysteriously" disappeared Halloween Night.
Students claimed it was probably discovering the troll that drove his last nerve loony and he ran away into the night. Others said those vampires he claimed to meet in Albania finally caught up to him. Still others claimed after he escorted the troll off the property, it got up and promptly smushed the quivering professor like a raspberry.
He will deny any allegations that he was the one who perpetuated that last one.
But Slender's letter to them the next morning hinted that said missing professor may have been a little more nefarious than his timid countenance may have suggested.
He also strongly urged them to avoid the Forest for the time being.
*Hiss!*
He was brought out of his mental monologue by BRVR screeching up a storm and leaping under Weasley's bed.
"Scabbers!" The redhead cried, grabbing the rodent as it ran out from underneath.
"BRVR, no. Bad cat-mouse-thing," Harry deadpanned. The pokemon growled at the flea-bitten rodent one last time before hopping into Harry's bag.
"Tell that bloody thing it can't have Scabbers," Ron protested, pulling out a spare bit of... something he nicked off the dinner table from his robes and feeding it to the chubby rat.
Harry turned to his own pet, "BRVR, you may not eat Ronald's rat." Leaning in close, he whispered, "you've no idea where it's been."
The cat-mouse grinned evilly in agreement, but decided to slunk back into the bag for a nap instead of plotting whether Ron's rat would go better braised or broiled.
"Thanks mate," Ron grinned, easily. "It's no offense, Harry, it's just Scabber's has been in the family for so long and I don't want to be the one to lose him."
"Fine, Weasley." He sighed.
"Aw, don't be like that. Hey, maybe I'll join you next time!"
"Next time?"
"The breathing thing, y'know?" For emphasis, the redhead gave several exaggerated huffs and puffs.
The ward smirked, "You know, why don't I give you a crash course now?"
"Really?"
"Yeah! It's perfectly fine." He replied, sliding his bag by the bed. "Now, first, lie on the bed like you would if you were sleeping."
Ron frowned, "But you were doing this thing with your legs crossed..."
"That's more advanced; we'll get there, but first, lie down. Face up, arms at your sides, but hands on your navel."
Ron shimmied back onto the bed in position. "Good, relax your muscles. Let your neck muscles go loose and your head fall into the pillow. Good. Now close your eyes and focus on breathing."
"Breathing?" The redhead scowled.
"Yes. Focus completely on breathing. Relax all of your muscles. Think about nothing else but breathing in and breathing out and make every breath more perfect than the last. That's it... now feel your navel rise and fall with each breath, good, and focus on breathing. Air going in through your nose, and out. In and out. Gently, think of the air currents in your throat, filling your lungs, pushing your stomach out, and out. In and out. In and-"
*SNAAAAAARRHKK*
Harry grinned to himself as the redhead finally clonked out and fell asleep, snoring like a chainsaw revving.
Picking up his bag, he smiled contentedly to himself as he let the door swing shut behind him.
Harry arrived at the Great Hall and his focus narrowed onto the smell of honeyed oatmeal with cream. Smiling, he hopped over to the Hufflepuff table and picked up a large spoonful.
"Have a good morning?" Nick greeted.
"Much better, actually," Harry said, thinking back to the redhead snoozing his way through the day. "So, what's on the docket today?"
"Charms between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaws."
"Aw, which means potions with Slytherin today." Harry groused. "And the day was going so well, too."
"Well... at least you have oatmeal?" Nick offered, gesturing to the lovely bowl in front of Harry.
*splat!*
...
Harry's eye twitched as his bowl of oaty-goodness was displaced in a foot-wide splash-zone by a thick Daily Prophet landing in his bowl. The offending package was courtesy of a snarky tawny owl, haughtily snatching a bacon strip off Ravenclaw's table and flying out.
"I hate the post system here."
"Sorry, mate, that's mine," Ernie Macmillan apologized, sheepishly plucking the newspaper out of Harry's ruined bowl.
Harry took a deep, calming breath and wiped the hot oats off his face with his napkin.
"So... have you seen Adrian anywhere?" Nick asked, glancing about the room for the dark miasma of not-a-morning-person congregated at Ravenclaw.
"I think he was saying yesterday some experiment with sleep," Harry considered. "He's probably not in the dorms, or he'd already be woken up the mini-sun we have in our dorm room. He's not in the common room because nobody leaves him alone there. And if he were in the old ballroom, I'd imagine we'd be feeling the organ thrumming through the castle right now."
...
"Library?"
"Library."
True to form, they found him in a back-corner of the library. A small window the only source of illumination in a little crevice jealously guarded by three oddly-shaped-probably-magicked bookcases.
Harry almost missed him, except his messenger-bird Scath had decided silently flying through the shelves and evading Madame Pince was a worthwhile diversion. They followed where the phantasmal bird landed every few moments and turned several dead-ends and secret-passageways behind bookshelves into more bookshelves before they found him.
"Morning, Adrian," Nick said cheerily.
The amnesiac glanced up, suddenly aware of their presence and glanced out the window beside him. "Oh, huh, I didn't realize. Good morning... I guess."
"Wait, how long have you been here?" Harry demanded, eyebrow raised.
Adrian glanced up in thought. "Well... I came here immediately after I told you about my experiment... so... since after classes yesterday."
Nick blustered in surprise, "W-what?! You've been here all night?"
"Yes, it's very relaxing. Very quiet," Adrian complimented brightly. "And Madame Pince doesn't check these far corners, so I stayed all night using my glowy-eyes to read without a lumos light giving me away."
He blinked, allowing his eyesockets to hollow and glow like embers for emphasis before blinking them back to normal again.
Nick shuddered, "I hate it when you do that."
"Well, we're sorry to burst your complete isolation from the rest of humanity-" Harry began.
"I prefer the term, 'social distancing'," Adrian retorted smugly.
"Mmm-hmm, well we've got classes to get to and you haven't even eaten yet."
"Yeah," Nick agreed. "You missed lunch and breakfast today. You have to eat sometime."
"Actually, no, I don't need to eat," Adrian pointed out. "I choose to eat, out of comfort. In case it slipped your mind, I spent a whole month in a farmhouse without food, water, or sleep. All this is just optional for me because I like it."
He held his hands out triumphantly, "I have ascended beyond that which mortals require. I am a god among sleepy, hungry, and excreting men."
"Well, Icarus, time to melt off your wings and drag you back down to earth," Harry drawled. "By reminding you that we have classes in 30 minutes. Which are not optional."
"Hmph, I'm surrounded by knowledge." Adrian retorted bitterly, pointing vaguely at the library around him. "Why can't it be where we just show up for the major exams and call it a day. No lectures needed.
"Because practice makes perfect?" Nick quipped.
"Perfection is overrated," The amnesiac retorted, hunching himself into a book in an attempt to blot out the world. "This is my home now. I am going to spend the rest of eternity here as the Library cryptid. Fade into the history of Hogwarts as a mystery."
"Except you have classes," Harry prodded.
He didn't respond, save pushing himself further into the book like he was trying to become one with the page.
...
"It's worth a grade."
...
"Slender would be upset with you."
...
Harry sighed.
"I think you're learning fire spells today-"
"Let's go."
Harry blinked as the seat was immediately vacated and Adrian was already half-way-out of his little alcove, Scath phasing through the window to head back to the owlry.
...
Nick and Harry hung back, glancing at one another before walking out after him.
...
They met a dead-end wall of books on Dragon Pus uses.
...
"Do you remember how to get back out of this?"
Nick barreled into the Charms classroom just as the clocktower struck. He could only pray Harry made it to Snape's class before now.
"Ah, Mr. Brahms, good of you to make it on time," Professor Flitwick squeaked. "Overslept, I take it?"
"No," He gasped. "W-we found these back areas in the library. Almost got completely lost in them."
Flitwick's face turned grave, "Ah, yes... the Back Annals of the Library... I, myself, have gotten lost in there... it took two weeks for me to find my way out again. I resorted to chewing leather book covers and drinking from lost inkwells for sustenance..."
His eyes trailed off in a stare before he blinked and returned to the present. "Well, why don't we get started on the lesson. As a matter of fact, Mr. Thresher, here, practically mastered the spell in the first few minutes before class! Just remarkable!"
Nick turned pale as he looked over to the normally expressiveless Ravenclaw.
Adrian's wand was casually throwing a jet of fire like a napalm flamethrower into the air, smiling absently and gazing at it like he was plucking daisy petals off.
His dark eyes slid to the corpse and the smile turned wicked.
He could practically see two tufts of hair on the top of his head curling into two, tiny devil horns.
The man stood stock still in an abandoned mansion, entertaining himself by staring at a small pocketwatch and guessing where his 'guest' would be right then. Assuming the man was as foolishly brilliant as he'd predicted, his guest would be here in three- two-
*BAM!*
The door swung open and a young man in his mid-30's stood there. He hadn't changed after his abrupt decision to leave his white-collar job through the back-alley entrance, so he was still in a boring set of gray pants, a plain white business shirt, and a boring, blue tie.
"Y-you," He whispered, dropping a pipe he'd picked up for 'defense'.
"Me," The man answered plainly.
"You were the one... the one who contacted me? The one who told me to come here. With all those posts on the different internet forums. You left... this- this... breadcrumb trail like it's all some kind of game!"
"Correct."
"I left my job for this! I... I cut off all contact with my friends, my girlfriend, for this! I... haha," He chuckled manically, ringing his hands through his hair. "They called me crazy. I knew there was a pattern to it all, but they kept saying I needed help, but... you're real. You're really real, and you're really here."
"That I am."
"I... I have so many questions, b-but I just... I just have to know." He stammered. "Why?"
...
The figure stalked up to his 'guest'. "I presume you are up-to-date on pop culture, so I'll skip the semantics and minutia."
Wordlessly he held out his hands, palm side up. In each palm was a single pill.
Red.
Blue.
The former-account-programmer stared at the options before squaring his resolve and swallowing the red pill.
...
The figure nodded satisfied-
-and popped the blue pill in his mouth, chewing as he returned to his seat.
"W-wait!" The 'guest' exclaimed, confused. "I thought... why did you... I mean-"
"It's a blue raspberry Mike n' Ike." The figure explained, still chewing. He pulled a box out from his coat pocket and poured out a couple more before throwing them back. "Yours is cherry-flavored."
The man's shoulders sagged, "So... it's not the pill to get me out of the Matrix?"
"Nope. Sorry, Neo, you are not the One," The figure grinned smugly.
"B-but I... I went through so much shit to get here!" He exclaimed. "All of this... all of that was... for a f*cking piece of candy?"
"Maybe..." The figure grinned, teeth stained multi-colored from food dye.
"... so I don't get a hot Trinity in my life?" He whined, disbelievingly.
The figure put down the box and stared at him like a moron. "You're a low-income programmer who is a cog in a meaningless corporate empire. You have a crappy apartment with a dead-end job. Your girlfriend cheats on you every other month and yet you still reconcile. Your friends are lousy. You sell viruses and malware as a side-gig, hack bank accounts, and Creator knows what else. You've been lurking in websites you shouldn't be. And you literally just ate something a complete stranger just gave you."
He sat up, "Speaking of..."
The figure pulled out his pocketwatch and glanced at it.
"What are you doing?" The moron asked impatiently.
"Waiting for your 'Mike n' Ike' to kick in."
"What?! B-but you said-!"
"I said mine was a Mike n' Ike. I said yours was cherry-flavored."
"What difference does that maaaaakkekekekekekkk," The 'guest' collapsed to the ground, foaming at the mouth and staring blankly at the ceiling which he was now convinced was a membrane-thin veil into the true meaning of the universe.
The figure sighed, pulling out an audio tape. "Test, Complete; Assignment Case #45208, Finished. Subject behaved exactly as I hypothesized and took the pill as I anticipated. Lurking cyber-threat to the UnderRealm neutralized. He'll be a babbling maniac for at least the next several months. End log."
He left the room, content to munch on a couple more candies as he swung his lab coat around himself. His surgical mask fit comfortably back over his mouth. He shut the door on the man still deliriously batting a hand at the ceiling.
He shuffled a dark overcoat on as he stalked out into the rainy night.
Ah, the joys of a long-game coming to fruition.
*fwish*
His thoughts were suspended as the telltale sound of a Messenger Bird flew into existence. The creature swooped low and delivered a letter in its beak to him. He absently took it and read over the Summons from the Council.
"Oooh, what an intriguing prospect," He murmured.
Fanged teeth glinted under his mask.
A new long-tame to play!
How exciting!
Eyeless Jack was a man on a mission.
He grunted as he hacked his pickaxe into the stone of the mountain and heaved himself further along. The climb was astronomical and the only Slender Port symbol was at the base of the mountain. He wore his blue parka and even with his abnormal anatomy, he was feeling the effects of low oxygen.
That, and he barely kept up with his physical fitness regimen, preferring his comfy, sedentary lab lifestyle.
But he received a letter earlier that week. An invitation to meet with someone of great skill and knowledge who offered his assistance.
He just needed to climb.
Five.
More.
Feet.
He heaved himself further.
Four.
Another.
Three.
Another.
What felt like an eternity, but was merely an extra burst of energy away, he reached the summit and collapsed, breathlessly in the snowy peak.
"You have arrived, I see."
Eyeless Jack couldn't be bothered with a glamour as he looked up at the wizened old man sitting cross-legged on a mat at the very top of the mountain. His eyes were closed and serene. Like he held all the knowledge in the universe.
"Why... *pant* can't I... *pant* just give you... *wheeze* a phone call."
"Oh, those muggle devices still baffle me." Ollivander grinned perkily. "I thought this 'old man on the mountain' routine was rather amusing."
"Yeah... hillarious..." He groaned, staring blankly at the sky.
Ollivander hopped up to his feet, pulling his large, red winter parka on over himself and walking over to a set of skiis laid at his side.
"You know," he said as he clipped his boots in. "I hadn't expected you to be up here. I saw you climbing about five minutes ago and I thought you were having a bit of fun, so I didn't want to spoil it. I had the idea for the 'old man on the mountain' bit just a few moments before you reached the top. Reminded me of when I was a young, spryly 50-million-year-old, dodging neutron star explosions in something I threw together, just for the thrill. Ah, those were the days."
"A real... blast," EJ heaved, wincing in confusion. "What do you mean... you didn't expect me up here... Your letter said to meet... at the summit."
"Well, yes, The Summit Lodge," Ollivander replied, pointing down the mountain.
EJ's eyeless eyelid twitched as he saw a cozy skii resort servicing dozens of people just at the base of the mountain. On the other side of where the Slender Port was.
"... Sir... no offense... but your letters need work." He wheezed.
Ollivander grinned. "So I take it you wouldn't be interested in joining me? I'm sure I can find some extra skiis-"
"No." He panted.
The old man shrugged, "Your loss. Skii lift is just over there."
EJ glanced over, not even 15 feet from where he lay, to see a skii lift slowly rotating and offloading people, tourists, to the summit.
He crawled his way to the way he climbed. It was the steep side of the mountain.
Ollivander pulled his goggles over his eyes. "I'll meet you at the lodge, then, shall I? Save you a sandwich and some cocoa?"
"With extra marshmallows..." EJ requested, dead on the inside.
With that, the elderly wandmaker nodded and pushed off towards the harder trails.
EJ took a moment to shakily make his way to the skii lift. Using his own mountain goggles to hide his eyes, he barely scraped the energy to glamour himself as he plopped into one of the seats. He leaned into the seat, gracefully pulling off the 'chickened-out-guy-returning-from-the-summit' look, but couldn't be bothered to care at the college girls tittering to their friends as he passed by.
He idly looked over at the mountainside and saw a figure in a distinct red coat jump and nail the ramp on a Double Black Diamond course.
Hungrily digging into the sandwich, EJ didn't care about his companion's eyebrow raise over his own mug of tea.
Ollivander had shuffled off his coat in the stifling heat of the lodge, revealing a T-shirt that said, "I survived the complete and utter destruction of the Universe, Reality, and the space-time continuum... TWICE!"
The eyeless doctor finally warmed up enough for his skin to, even glamoured, not be a concerning shade of blue and he turned to the wandmaker in their little booth to the side.
Ollivander set his own mug down with an easy smile, "Now, then, let me tell you all I know about Magic."
AN: I enjoyed skiing. I think I regularly did the Blue Diamonds on those trips, but once slowly inched my way along a Black Diamond. The others in my group were eager to push their luck on the Doubles, so I was the one who came out most intact after that scout outing.
A little more fluffy of a chapter, just for me to have some fun.
And a bonus I've had in mind for a while.
Bonus:
Ollivander stood in his shop, with a feeling something truly momentous would occur today.
...
The bell above his shop door tingled. In walked a youth with dark hair and a crimson stripe styled mysteriously over eyes; one silver, one gold. A ring and matching necklace with a mysterious symbol hung around his neck.
"Hello, and welcome to Ollivanders." The old man greeted. "I remember every wand I've ever sold, but I don't quite recall anyone who reminds me of you."
"My name is Thorn Ravenshire-Nirehtyls." The youth spoke. "I am an orphan, at least that's what they told me at the secret organization that brought me up as a child. I have no memory before I was five years old. I don't know my parents, all I know is that I have this symbol on my ring and necklace to remind me of them. They say my mysterious and vivid dreams are visions of my destiny. And I have decided to come to the United Kingdom in search of the mysteries behind my ancestors."
"Ah, then perhaps my finest wand," Ollivander mused, opening a hidden chamber in his shop to pull out a craggy wand with a powerful, dark aura around it. "This was forged 1000 years ago. Scales of a dragon were melted down with the fires of hell itself. Then, tempered with the tears of Merlin in a solution created by the mingling of the blood to the Four Founders of Hogwarts mixed in the bucket that melted the Wicked Witch of the West."
He held it out, "It's said that the song of this wand entices those who are worthy enough to wield it."
The youth took it in his hand. Feeling the power flow and ebb from him. Destiny was forged! Timelines erased! Darkness eradicated!
He flicked it-
-and was launched backwards into the wall. The wand flipped in the air, which Ollivander caught with a disinterested shrug.
"Apparently not," He mused.
AN: I was seriously tempted to just name this guy 'Gary Stu'.