CHAPTER FIVE
Despite my boisterous exclamation, Fughly and I didn't immediately travel to the Big Apple. With my magical skills it shouldn't be too difficult to get my hands on some dollars, even without the hassle of converting all the pounds I… confiscated from the three Hibs Boys I consumed. Hell, with my future knowledge it shouldn't be all too difficult to then convert those dollars into a literal fortune by visiting Wall Street before I skip town and dipping a toe into the world of stocks and traders.
Wizarding money on the other hand was more unified than its Muggle counterpart, likely due to the significantly smaller population numbers and the monopoly the Goblins had on the magical banking world.
Since I didn't fancy trying to pull a fast one on the notoriously greedy beings, I needed to restock my Galleon supply.
Despite the common fanfiction trope of making them a sympathetic species that were just waiting to follow the Great Hadrian Potter-Black-Crow in their glorious Revolution for Peace and Sunshine, the truth was quite different. Goblins were near-universally nasty and took a special delight in being so.
Don't believe me? Hagrid thought hellhounds were cute and dragons were pets. The man even had a house-sized spider and his entire brood of man-eating children as friends! Yet it was Goblins that he warned young Harry against and with good reason.
Goblins had long memories, potent magic and knew how to carry a grudge. No other species had clashed so often and so violently with wizarding kind and was still around to tell the tale.
In fact, the way the wizards told said tale, it was only the bleeding heart of wizarding kind that eventually brought an end to the endless streak of Rebellions, being the gracious victors that they were.
Considering that Goblins now controlled our finances on a global level, I'm not quite so sure we were the winners there.
Not that I much cared beyond how it affected me, which in this case meant that I'd need more Galleons should I need to make a purchase over in the States. Considering I wanted to be as stealthy as possible in my eating of Mister Fieldwake's brain, I'd rather not have to go to the New York Gringotts branch to exchange my currencies. As luck would have it, the building on the right of the House Elf Placement Agency on Carkitt Market, sandwiched between it and Wands by Gregorovich, was a Gringotts Money Exchange.
I wasn't entirely sure why they needed this little building here considering they already owned the massive bank not even a hundred meters away, not that I much cared. Maybe because it was only really useful to Haflblood and Muggleborn wizards and witches, and this was how they were kept from the more prestigious main building frequented by the Purebloods?
Whatever the case, I was in and out of there in under twenty minutes. The building may be smaller in scope and situated on a less-visited part of the magical shopping centre, but it was still run with the signature Goblin diligence.
For instance, it was the cleanest building here, its black pillars and storefront immaculate and imposing, despite their small size.
All in all, I had decided to convert about 5000 pounds into Galleons, nicely filling my pockets with 1004 Galleons.
Well, 1004 Galleons and 7 Knuts, to be precise.
If the unfamiliar Goblin behind the tall counter (I hadn't asked for his name and he hadn't offered it) was even remotely curious about the fat stacks of bills I placed before him, he didn't show it. One long, clawed finger had run across the tip of the stack as he fanned it briefly, the rifling sound surprisingly grating as he scrutinized me with gleaming eyes.
After counting the money, he had moved the stacks out of sight, written down something in his ledger and rung a bell. To the side of his oversized counter stood a low-slung table, made of dark wood and graciously decorated in gold plating, behind which stood another Goblin. At the ringing of the small bell, he took out a drawer on his side of the large desk, placing it on the tabletop before brusquely shoving it my way.
It looked like a safe deposit box, the ones Muggles have in the centre of vaults in banks and from it I took a decently sized pouch, heavy with gold (and a bit of bronze, apparently). Any other wizard would've taken the money and walked under the piercing gazes of the stern looking Goblins, but, as ugly as they were, my Hibs Boys have stared down worse and without appearing hurried or even remotely uncomfortable at all, I loosened the opening of the pouch and overturned it into the deposit box.
It took me fifteen of those twenty minutes I spent inside the Gringotts Money Exchange, but I counted out every single Galleon that was in that pouch (and the seven Knuts as well). Contrary to what fanfiction had told me, the Goblins didn't look at me with respect in those beady eyes simply for displaying some savviness and the basics of common sense, bringing me before their noble leader Fangtooth, or Gutrot or Limpdick or whatever as they pledged their armies to my cause. If anything, they looked borderline livid, which, yeah ok, this could be seen as a pretty big insult towards their banking skills by implying they couldn't even count out their own money.
However, it was my money now and if they understood one thing above all else it was the desire to know exactly what you had and how much it was worth (and then shoving said worth in your rivals' faces).
Pretty sure that therapy in Goblin society is just plopping down on a stack of gold and counting how many coins there are under your butt until you've destressed.
Huh, that doesn't sound too bad actually. Something to keep in mind in the future. If it worked for Scrooge McDuck, then why not for Gilderoy Lockhart?
Satisfied that I had been paid in full for my hard-stolen cash, I left the fuming Goblins behind me as I exited their office and my eyes immediately landed on the building across Carkitt Market on the opposite side of the Exchange Office. Like so many buildings here, the Museum of Muggle Curiosities was done up in dark woods and plastered brick, the purple paint already beginning to flake as the stone gradually became covered in soot.
I studied the little building (and it really was little, even by Carkitt Market standards. Guess most wizards aren't particularly interested in their Muggle counterparts) with a critical eye. I currently had three apartments worth of stuff which I would have to flip soon before the rest of the Hibs Boys hooligan club checked in on their missing members, which would only be a few days at most.
The knives I found that were useful for self-defence I had blunted and shrunk, leaving one of my pockets filled with paper-clip sized miniatures of murder implements, including two aged hunting rifles. The rest of the junk in the apartments I hadn't bothered with taking beyond the loose cash I Accio'd to myself. Considering Arthur Weasley's bizarre fascination with the common uses of the rubber duckie, there was bound to be something in that stash of trash the hooligans had called home that would interest these nutters.
Briefly I mulled over my next step. The need to perfect my Mind-Eating Spell was a burning drive inside me, but realistically speaking it wasn't on a time limit (well, beyond needing to get to Fieldwake before the aged wizard began pushing up daisies at least). Especially since I didn't dare use it yet on wizards. But since non-magical folk had no innate mental defences (as far as I could tell so far at least, maybe spies and such would be more of a challenge) I could still prey on them. They might not teach me any spells, but the Muggle world still held a wealth of possibilities for me. So, while perfecting the Mind-Spell may not be on a tight schedule, as said, the apartments of the Hibbs Boys I consumed would only remain undisturbed for so long before someone stumbled on it. I briefly wondered if filtering through the trash was something that my House Elf could take care of while I was conducting my business in America.
Probably not. House Elves likely knew even less about the Muggle world than wizards did, so mine wouldn't know what would be valuable enough to take.
Then again, the wizards running the little museum probably didn't either.
Hell, I didn't know what would be worth taking since I had no clue what kind of stuff the wizards would actually be interested in! They might dismiss a Rolex out of hand yet go absolutely bonkers about a futon or something equally ridiculous. With how insane your average wizard was when it came to normal things, there was simply no way of telling.
Well then, that settles it.
I pretty much gave the aged wizard running the museum a heart attack when I barged into his little gallery, judging by how he tried to stammer out a greeting as I glanced around at the items on display. It was as I thought: there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to the variety of utterly mundane objects shown here and a closer look at a handheld whisker (which the nearby placard speculated medieval knights may have carried proudly into battle as a torture device) indicated that the wizards themselves had no clue about what they actually had on display.
This worked out in my favour, since I could bullshit the aged wizard into buying the most useless things for a pretty prize, Gilderoy's charm and the Hibbs Boy's criminal savviness working in tandem to create a masterpiece of outright sleaziness.
A car salesman would fall to his knees before me in awe of my skill with bullshit-fu.
The problem however was that, while I could definitely squeeze the wizard for all that he was worth, he… well, he simply wasn't worth much in the first place. My earlier observation was correct: there weren't a lot of tourists that came in here to gawk at Muggle paraphernalia. Families with ties to the Muggle world actually made up the majority of his clientele, curious to see how they were perceived by this new world they found themselves in (and often leaving disappointed and frustrated).
Wizarding families quite simply couldn't care less.
All in all, after convincing the aged wizard to come with me to the three Muggle apartments I now owned (which admittedly wasn't very difficult to do, the man practically vibrating with excitement at the prospect of visiting a Muggle house) where I sang the praises of toasters and bicycles alike until the man had virtually emptied out his pockets to buy almost my entire stock, I was left only 482 Galleons richer.
Well, 482 Galleons and 16 Knuts, to be precise.
The aged man simply didn't have any more funds to buy the rest of the crap I still had laying around, to both our disappointment. There must be still something of a decent(-ish) person left buried underneath Gilderoy and the criminals I had absorbed, since after cheating him out of almost all his money, I at least offered the man to have my House Elf transport all the junk he bought back to his museum, where we hashed out the final details of the sale and where he handed me the money.
By the time I stepped out onto Carkitt Market once more, the sun was dipping down lower in the sky as it became rather late in the afternoon. Famished as I was, I stalked past Filibuster's Fireworks which was located right next to the Museum (odd combination, that) walking towards the Hopping Pot pub on the other side of the street. My pace slowed slightly and it wasn't because of the extravagant displays in the storefront of the fireworks shop (well, maybe a little, but I had to admit that the dragon made of fire that kept chasing its own tail looked cool as fuck). As I walked towards my destination, I took in the store next to the fireworks shop: Zonko's Joke Shop. An unassuming, nearly deserted store that would, in some fifteen years or so, become the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes emporium.
The plural in that name still weighs heavy on my mind even as I cross the threshold of the Hopping Pot and take a seat towards the side in the dimly lit main room (and what is it with wizards and their aversion to proper lighting anyways?! Get some LED lamps in here you barbarians! Oh, right, those things are just beginning to make waves in the Muggle market, meaning we should get them in here in, oh, say five hundred years or so?).
While not as prestigious as the Leaky Cauldron, I honestly can't really tell if there's much of a difference between this dingy, old pub and the other dingy, old pub and I instead just focus on my meal. I should have some time, considering Fughly would be occupied for a little while yet with brining over everything to the Museum, as well as cleaning out the apartments and bringing the unsold goods to a storage unit over in Leeds I had arranged after my trip with the curator.
If this guy was willing to pay through the nose for the random crap left in my possession after absorbing my victims, then there was no reason to store it all safely away and unload it on similarly interested (and insane) folk across the wizarding world for a neat little profit.
I wonder how much Arthur is willing to fork over for one of the automatic fans I got?
I'm finished with my meal and am on my second butter beer by the time Fughly pops up next to me, telling me he's finished and ready to go. I almost walk straight out of the pub before remembering that these people can in fact see me and toss a few Galleons and some Sickles onto the table before making my exit.
Now, with belly full and pockets heavy, it was finally time to go visit my next victim across the Atlantic.
As it turned out, House Elf teleportation is a very different kind of weird compared to Wizarding teleportation. Not less weird. Just… different. Despite my recent arrival in this world, I was already quite familiar with the feeling of some of the wizarding world's premiere forms of FTL-transportation available to the general public and their corresponding oddities.
The Floo was a common one of course, and was best described as being stuck in an invisible (and non-existent) rollercoaster which hadn't passed OSHA regulations in over a century. It was often used to go from abode to abode without ever needing to see the outside world (why would you need to, when you could just look at it through your ceiling like Hogwarts so famously did). It wasn't so much travelling as it was just switching to other rooms in different houses. Actual travel across long distances was commonly done with a Portkey instead, which Gilderoy was less familiar with. There had hardly been any reason for him to personally travel outside of Great Britain after all (the lad had never even set foot on mainland Europe once in his young life) and the few times the Lockharts went on a holiday abroad (once to Egypt and twice to Canada) they had travelled the Muggle way.
It wasn't that Muggles couldn't travel via magical ways, it was just very uncomfortable for them. Not that it wasn't uncomfortable for us either mind you, since it felt like a giant fisherman just hooked you behind the navel and who was very enthusiastic about reeling you in for tonight's stew. I can't imagine what it would feel like for a Muggle, as Gilderoy's father preferred not to talk about it (though then again, he hardly talked with his wizard son in the first place, much less about magic).
All I knew was that John had Side-Apparated with Madeline once.
Once.
Besides, while Portkeys can be made by a suitably knowledgeable wizard on the fly (which was a decent amount of the population, though surprisingly not a majority), this was pretty frowned upon as such things are normally under the purview of the Department of Magical Transportation. Given the vast and myriad ways that wizards could cheat physics itself just to get around (not to mention their general aversion to logical systems and proper governing) the Department could also be seen as the wizarding version of the Customs Office and they could get very strict if they felt you had moved your body in a way that didn't conform completely and utterly to their guidelines and restrictions.
There was the infamous incident of 1873 when Henry Abbernock, a young lad fresh out of Hogwarts', had taken his father's broom on a joy ride through Diagon Alley. He (obviously) crashed and three broken storefronts, two unfortunate owls and, of course, one utterly disintegrated broom later, young Henry found himself before an infuriated Department of Magical Transportation, who hexed the teenager quite severely.
For the rest of his days, Henry Abbernock was unable to lift his feet more than three and a half inches up from the ground. At all times.
Incidentally, Henry Abbernock is also known today as the first developer of the wizarding bungalow home.
The close eye the Department of Magical Transportation kept on Portkey-travel had made it a no-go from the start. I don't want a bunch of magical bureaucrats (who are really just as annoying as normal bureaucrats except these ones can alter reality itself on a whim) knowing my every move and I don't want to be bothered by nosy Aurors every time I try to move around them anyways.
Lastly of course there is Apparation, which most closely resembled House Elf teleportation. It was much freer to use than the other two which could only travel between fixed, pre-determined locations. Additionally, all you needed was a wand (and if you were skilled enough, not even that) and it was hardly even monitored, even less so than brooms were. The only real downside to it was that it was entirely reliant on your own skill with the Apparation Charm, meaning that it could be limited in range and usability if you couldn't perform the spell competently enough.
Or if you were easily motion sick.
Gilderoy himself wasn't as familiar with the spell as I'd hoped, though that wouldn't be much of an issue once I perfected my Mind-Eating spell and began absorbing the skills of more experienced wizards. The young man had been taught teleportation in his final year of Hogwarts, but had been a rather slow study.
Not because of his usual laziness this time, but because he had a rather deep-seated fear of Splinching himself. Most notably, that he would leave his nose behind if he tried to teleport away. You can hardly get your mug on the cover of Witches Weekly without a nose, now can you?
I don't see Voldemort pulling it off anytime soon, not without taking over all of Wizarding Britain first at least.
… I wonder if he's actually vain enough to demand his face should be on the cover of the magazine every week?
While Gilderoy's fears were somewhat silly, they weren't entirely unfounded. It was often forgotten due to how closely connected they were, but teleporting around actually required you to master (and I do mean, master) two very different aspects of the spell. After all, for you to appear somewhere, you need to disappear first. Disapparating from once place almost instantly popped you out at the location you wanted to Apparate to, provided you remembered the three D's: Destination, Determination and Deliberation.
What the difference was between Determination and Deliberation Gilderoy didn't know and hadn't bothered to ask, somewhat intimidated by the strict Twycross, the appointed Apparition instructor. Well, by him and of course the prospect of losing his perfectly straight nose somewhere in the Hebrides.
Gilderoy was rather attached to his nose and much preferred it to stay that way.
So, once you held the three D's firmly in your mind, you would disappear yourself from your current location, essentially 'glitching' yourself outside of reality. Which of course the universe couldn't abide by, who would then immediately snatch you by the scruff of the neck as if it was going "Oi, oi, oi then, tryin' to sneak off then, are ya?" like a copper catching a teenager outside during school hours. It would then prop you back into reality again, which Harry in the books described as "being pushed through a rubber tube". But, the universe hadn't been paying as close attention as it should have and it could be fooled into thinking you had been standing at your desired location all along if you thought about it hard enough.
Of course, if you hadn't been thinking about your destination hard enough, you would only end up confusing the universe since it would have two conflicting places that you clearly were supposed to be at, instead of being all disappeared like that. But the universe isn't picky and would easily resolve the issue by just splitting the difference (and you) across the two locations, dusting off its hands and calling it a day.
Having your torso end up in Yorkshire while your legs went for a scenic walk along the beaches of Brighton?
For all his many (many, many) faults, I had to give young Gilderoy this one at least: Splinching can be real fucking scary.
Still, his skill with it wasn't nearly sufficient enough to attempt travel across an entire ocean (hell, I wouldn't even dare to try and cross the Channel with my current skill) though to be fair the same could be said for a significant portion of the British wizarding populace.
Which is of course where my House Elf Fughly came in. While their teleportation was extraordinarily similar to ours, it very clearly operated under different rules and limitations, such as being able to bypass otherwise formidable wards. And while Apparition was barely monitored (beyond registering your passing grade with the Department of Magical Transportation), House Elf travel was, like so much of their existence, completely overlooked by wizard authorities.
This was true across the pond as well, since I arrived without problems or raising any red flags on a breezy morning in the shadow of the towering Chrysler Building in the heart of New York City after feeling like I got thrown into a Slush Puppy machine instead of a rubber tube (like I said, House Elf teleportation isn't less weird, just different weird). It hadn't exactly been my choice to arrive in such a public space, considering MACUSA had their headquarters not even five minutes away from here in Lower Manhattan, closer towards the Statue of Liberty. Ideally, Fughly would've dropped me off on the outskirts of the city centre, far enough removed so I wouldn't run into an American wizard out on a coffee break, but still in an area populated enough a new addition to the crowd would go unnoticed.
The only problem with that particular approach was that neither Fughly nor I have any idea what the outskirts of New York City even look like and (sadly) there is no Google Maps in 1983. House Elf transportation was immensely versatile and contrary to us wizards could teleport to a location they had never been before, with one, but very important, caveat.
Their travel had to be linked to the needs of their master.
No master, no travel to a place they quite simply don't know.
Something of a Catch-22 in this case, so in the end I took Fughly into Muggle London after quietly slipping through the Leaky Cauldron, making my way towards the nearest travel agency outlet. There was one on Carkitt Market, tucked away in the corner of the square and small enough it almost seemed to be swallowed by the Jellied Eel Shop (a delicacy Gilderoy's memories kept insisting was utterly amazeballs, but which I wasn't very keen on trying anytime soon), called Globus Mundi Travels, but I didn't bother with them.
A brief glance in their storefront windows quickly showed that they were wholly focused on magical tourist locations and while that was definitely interesting in its own right and something I intended to revisit in the future, for now I didn't think I had any need for a machete (with accompanying pith helm!) that self-sharpened itself on vines.
As I intended to go to a Muggle location, I needed a Muggle's information and so through the Leaky Cauldron and onto Charing Cross Road we went, passing a Blockbuster on the way, still blissfully unaware of its bleak future in the entertainment business. This being the heart of London, with tourists and well-off citizens aplenty, it thankfully hadn't taken long for me to stumble across a little store with large posters of far-flung locations hanging in its grubby storefront.
Stepping inside I immediately and without hesitation placed a minor Confundus charm on the clerk, whose brain briefly short-circuited when the little bell by the door jingled but his eyes couldn't focus on his new customer, courtesy of the Notice-Me-Not spells still holding strong on my clothing. Considering this was a mind-related spell (one Gilderoy already had some talent in before I hijacked his body), I used the Silver Lime wand to great effect.
It might just be me projecting my expectations onto it, but it did feel like I had a greater degree of control over the charm, allowing me to simply make the clerk ignore me entirely, instead of just scrambling his brains like eggs for lunch and leaving him a drooling moron for the next 10 minutes.
It was very promising for the future development of my Mind-Eating spell, especially if I used the Maple wand for my experimentations with the complicated charm.
With the clerk simply staring blankly ahead like he had been doing before my entrance, I quickly went around the little store, tearing pamphlets out of their stands and slipping postcards into my pockets. On and on I went, always keeping an eye on the Confunded shop assistant and a loose grip on my Silver Lime wand.
Finally I came across the postcard I was looking for. Grabbing the little card and stuffing it into my now bulging coat pockets, I cast a more precise Memory Charm on the clerk, essentially 'snipping' the last five minutes from his mind entirely. Between the lingering effects of the Confundus Charm and how he never actually properly saw me, his mind will fill in the blanks itself and just assume he had been dozing off or something.
The mind is very powerful, but also used to interpreting the world around you before you can even truly perceive it. It'll not only correct your vision, if need be, it'll correct your memories as well, constantly 'smoothing' things over so that it fit the narrative you naturally already construed in your head.
It was why in my time, over thirty years from now, witness testimonies would gradually be seen as less and less reliable: the mind will often tell you what it thinks you think you saw.
While I might've felt bad about misusing the clerk's own mind against his memories, it really was no different than when Gilderoy stole a classmate's homework and made them forget the past hour or two. After all, it wouldn't do if, every time he had to submit an assignment on the six different uses of salamander gonads, one of his fellow Ravenclaws suddenly couldn't remember their House, the year or their own name.
It would make them completely useless if he wanted to steal their homework for the next assignment after all.
Well, that and it would quickly raise suspicion with the teachers if half their student body suddenly came down with a bad case of amnesia right before their O.W.L.'s.
Leaving the travel agency behind me, I quickly and quietly dip into a back alley, three lifetimes having spent on the street making me aware of my surroundings at all times and allowing me to pick a side street that is conveniently hidden from the view of passers-by, and which isn't occupied by fellow crooks and criminals.
Turning on my heel I almost have a heart-attack when Fughly is standing right in front of me, his carrot-like nose nearly brushing my knees with how close he's standing near me, looking up at me with big eyes full of expectation and slight confusion.
Little fella probably never went into the Muggle world before, let alone a busy city like London, so I guess all of this is somewhat overwhelming to him, especially since I didn't really tell him what we were even doing here.
Bending down to a knee I grab inside my pocket, randomly taking one of the pamphlets out of my coat, showing an aerial shot of… the Sydney Opera House? Huh, apparently it was set to celebrate its ten-year anniversary next year. Sure, why not.
"Fughly. You can't travel to a place you've never seen before. But with a photo like this, would it work? Could you travel to a location like on this picture?"
The little House-Elf squints down at the little leaflet I've pushed in his spindly arms, bringing the paper so close it wrinkles around the tip of his nose. He's still frowning in confusion as his large eyes shift so he's peering over the edge of the pamphlet up at me.
"Master wants… to go here?"
"Well, maybe not that place in particular right now. But yes, there is a place far away that I have a picture of that I want you to take me to."
"If Master Gilderoy Lockhart wants to go somewhere, then Fughly will take Master Gilderoy Lockhart to somewhere!" The Elf proclaims loudly, still uttering my name with every ounce of bravado his little body can muster, already bringing up a hand as he's about to snip his fingers.
I leap forwards, clasping his spindly hand in my own just in time so the over-eager magical servant doesn't just whisk me off to the other side of the planet.
"Thank you Fughly." I breathlessly say as I sigh in relief when I notice we're still in a dank back alley in London.
… that might be the first time in history someone has ever said that.
"However, I don't want to go to this location." I say, gently prying the Sydney pamphlet out of his little hands.
Returning it to my pocket, I instead pull out a post card, showing the 80's skyline of New York City.
"I want to go here." I said as I tapped the picture.
Fughly took one look at the gleaming skyscraper placed prominently in the centre of the picture and the same magic that allowed House Elves to come to their master's aid whenever called, no matter what, now surged around us to accommodate my wishes.
A snip of spindly fingers and the feeling of being churned around in a giant ice cream machine later and I stood at the base of one of the most famous buildings in one of the most famous cities in the world.
Thankfully, the charms I had placed in my clothes held up, the crowd of rushing New Yorkers parting seamlessly around me, not a single one of them even so much as sparing me a second (or even first) glance. Still, better to be safe than sorry and I quickly left the main avenues behind as I once again moved towards a back alley to catch my breath.
"Well done Fughly. Now, I need you to-… Fughly?" I called out softly to my Elf (not just because I wanted to remain stealthy, but also because… well, it's not just a name you go and shout everywhere, now is it?).
A small popping noise at my back heralded the arrival of my magical servant, and turning on my heel I'm surprised to see the sorry state the little creature is in. His form is covered in sweat, his shoulders are tight and he's panting. He looks so exhausted, even his carrot nose is dipping under the strain.
No wonder wizards rely on Portkeys for long-distance travel instead of just teleporting using their Elves: transporting me to another continent clearly took a lot out of the little guy.
Bending down slightly, I tap Fughly on the shoulder, who looks up at me with slightly dulled eyes.
"Well done Fughly. Very well done. Go and take some rest until you're feeling better, then come find me."
To his credit, the Elf tries to straighten up and slow his breathing, but I can tell he's still exhausted.
"Master Lockhart, Fughly can still work-" he tries (even dropping the boisterous Gilderoy Lockhart), but I gently, yet firmly cut him off.
"Fughly. I have a great responsibility, one that requires immense effort and impeccable results to complete. You are exhausted, I can tell. If you tried to complete a task for me now, would you achieve impeccable results? Hmm? Would you really want to saddle me with subpar efforts because of your sense of pride?"
That finally gets through to the little House Elf, who sags in on himself as he gives me a defeated nod. Another snap of his fingers and he's disappeared from sight.
I had wanted to immediately send him to contact Fieldwake, but it would make for a bad impression if a nearly unconscious House Elf just suddenly flopped down in the middle of your living room. Fieldwake is the key in fine-tuning my greatest weapon, the one thing that'll set me up for life.
I will not let anything jeopardize my acquisition of his knowledge.
Still, that left me alone in New York City for a few hours, which sounded great… until I realized none of the four minds in my head had ever been in the city before, meaning I was pretty much lost in a city with eight million citizens.
Hm, what to do? What to-?
"Hey man, you lost?!" a taunting voice sounded out and looking up I spotted a group of five people swaggering towards me.
My criminal memories immediately point out the guns they have tucked in their waistbands and come to a single conclusion: as far as these people are concerned, I'll be leaving this valley either without my wallet or without a heartbeat.
"Man, look at this fool! What are you even wearing homie?! You goin' to a fair or sumthing!?" a second guy calls out, pointing out my wizarding coat to the laughter of his fellow robbers.
As they begin crowding around me, I can see some of them getting weirded out when all I do is smile back at them, my hands loose at my sides. This turns to outright confusion when I take out a slim piece of wood (Walnut in fact, not that these ruffians could tell) from my pocket and begin waving it around myself in odd patterns.
"The fuck you doin' man!?" the lead thug shouts, tugging his gun (a Smith&Wesson 645, a memory from one of my hooligans helpfully tells me) from his pants and aiming right at my forehead.
"Well, if you must know, I'm applying defensive charms to my clothing. My first idea was putting up a Silencing Ward as I don't want people to come running when your guns go off, but then I realized I only know the Silencio Charm, which is a single-target spell, not an area of effect one. Something to look into in the future I suppose." I explain, smile still on my face.
"Quit playing man! Hand over your money or I'm putting a bullet in your-"
I presume he was going to say 'head', but he doesn't get that far as I mutter "Expelliarmus" under my breath, my wand (which he had of course ignored) held at my side and pointed straight at his belly.
The man goes flying back while his gun is knocked from his hand, seemingly by an invisible force and the rest of the gang takes a few seconds to process just what the hell happened. I don't, immediately moving to attack. My Walnut was a wand without scruples and fitted with the dragon heartstring of a Romanian Longhorn, a vicious hunter even for a dragon, so I considered it the best fit for direct combat, which proves to be true when two Stunning charms impact the two thugs on my left faster than I've ever slung a spell before.
The two hit the ground near-simultaneously, but the sudden movement spooks the remaining two crooks who but pull the trigger on their handguns as well, hitting me square in the back. I stumble, but more from the unexpected force rather than the power of the shots. Thankfully, as a seasoned hooligan and criminal, I don't freeze up at the sound of gunfire like Gilderoy or I would have in such a situation, instead making sure to duck my head and allowing my coat to take the shots as I prepare myself.
Having unloaded half a dozen shots each, the thugs halt their fire when they see me still standing, not even so much as a tear in my jacket. Not giving them a chance to overcome their shock, I whirl around, unleashing two more Stunners before they get another shot off. As they immediately collapse in on themselves, guns flopping from limp hands, I give my Walnut wand an appreciative look.
Damn I love Stunners. They're fast, non-lethal, I can do them non-verbally, and if they hit a target, it immediately goes down no matter where I got them.
Honestly, it's like a PG-13 version of the Avada Kedavra, especially against Muggles who can't shield themselves against it.
Against wizards, I just have to make sure to attack before they can even consider shielding themselves in the first place.
I give my Walnut another approving glance before I whip it to the side.
"Accio that gun."
There's a brief sound of metal hitting concrete and then I snatch the Smith&Wesson straight out of the air, pointing it down towards the lead thug who had made a desperate leap for the weapon. He's on hands and knees looking up at me, sheer confusion and panic clear to see on his sweating face.
"What… what the fuck are you…?" he gasps out, looking past the barrel of the gun to my grim smile.
I can't resist.
"Me? I'm just an Englishman in New York."
And with that, I lower the gun as my Walnut whips forwards, a fifth and final Stunner flashing forwards in a red beam and the criminal flops down unconscious.
Swiftly, I place Muggle Repelling Charms at both sides of the short alleyway, though it doesn't seem the firefight has really caught anyone's attention out on the main streets of New York City. That's… well, that's a bit depressing honestly, though it works out in my favour, so I don't dwell on it too long.
I quickly pile the thugs up behind a nearby dumpster, lining them up so their sitting against the wall in a neat little row as I return my Walnut to my sleeve, instead once again taking out my Silver Lime. As I place the tip of the slim wood against the temple of the first thug, I muse that, while Google Maps might not exist in the 80s, it's no great loss in the end.
Nothing beats the personal experience of traversing a city's streets on your own anyways, especially if someone else already did that for you.
I adjust the cuffs of the sleeves on my fancy wizarding coat as I stood waiting in front of the lacquered door, its lion-headed knocker seemingly boring into me with a piercing gaze, which I diligently ignored.
I was still riding the high of the spectacularly productive two days I've had here in New York since my arrival. I had spent close to an hour consuming my would-be muggers, but it had left me with a detailed knowledge of almost every single street and alleyway in the Bronx and nearby districts, not to mention several criminal safehouses and hide outs.
The potential bleed-over into my own thoughts and personality was a problem, but so far, the effects of the Hibs Boys I'd consumed had been fairly minor so it shouldn't affect me too severely.
Besides, addressing that issue was the entire reason why I was here in New York anyways and if everything continued to go my way, it would be resolved soon enough.
I had stripped the thugs of any valuables they had on them and then put a bullet or two in each one to make it seem like ordinary gang violence to keep any potential MACUSA Aurors off my trail. Five guys showing up in a single area, suffering from absolute and inexplicable amnesia? That might send up some red flags at MACUSA. However, the wizards didn't care about Muggles, much less about Muggle-on-Muggle violence. So just another five guys ending up in the morgue as a result of yet more gang violence?
It wasn't even a blip on their radar.
I knew all this, yet firing those bullets turned out to be almost impossible to do when the bodies you were looking at were people that you were or knew your whole life. I knew exactly why they had turned to a life of crime, knew their likes and fears and hopes and failures. Knew who they left behind.
I still pulled the trigger.
After I stole their memories, their weapons and their valuables, I went on to raid their stashes, which took most of the rest of the day. The time difference between London and New York meant that there was still some time left before nightfall, but by that point I had been exhausted. Simply walking into the Four Seasons Hotel off Broadway (passing through Chinatown and Little Italy as I did, which left me somewhat on edge thanks to the new gangsters in my mind and their experience with the local mobs) and unlocking a penthouse suite with a simple Alohomora, I settled in for the night.
Another Muggle Repellent Charm would make sure hotel staff wouldn't disturb me in the meanwhile. If there was a double booking, tough shit.
Before I dozed off, I called Fughly to my side, who was looking quite a bit better by now, dictating a letter to him and sending him off to Fieldwake's residence. Yet another benefit of having a House Elf along for the ride. Gilderoy didn't know the magic involved, but an owl would be able to travel to near any location if it was written on the parcel they were delivering. Which was the crux of the matter: I didn't have Fieldwake's address, which made owl delivery useless. Finding his address might not be impossible, but it would almost certainly require me to interact with MACUSA, and contrasting my earlier Sting quote, right now I was an illegal alien.
But the same magic that had allowed Fughly to transport us to another continent based on my wishes, meant that he would be able to deliver my letter to an address I didn't even know because that was simply the task required of him. Bring this letter to said person was the objective, and the simplistic way in which House Elf magic worked meant that he would fulfill said objective.
All I had to do now was lay low and wait for Fieldwake's response.
Which had only come yesterday, after I had spent the rest of the day wandering New York City, making sure to move away from lower Manhattan and keeping my magical use to a minimum. I had even left my wizarding clothes back in my penthouse at the hotel (magically locking the door of course) having bought normal Muggle clothes before I set out for the day.
With the sheer amount of cash I had on hand, I decided to just take a day off and instead went sightseeing, even though I had grown up in NYC five times already. I had a great day at the Bronx Zoo, until I came to the reptile exhibits at least. Seeing an anaconda lounging in its tank was an uncomfortable reminder of whose universe I was intruding upon and immediately soured my mood enough that I turned around and left.
I was standing way up in the torch of the Statue of Liberty (which, somewhat surprisingly, had no wizarding presence or hints of magical contraptions or doorways at all) when Fughly came back with Fieldwake's response, who agreed to me coming over to his place to "interview him on the minutiae of the mysterious Mind Arts", inviting me over for dinner tonight.
From the man's letter, he seemed surprised but not suspicious, so that was a definite plus. A wizard on his guard is difficult prey indeed, especially in their own homes. Fieldwake's invitation put a pep in my step as I returned to my hotel room and began sprucing up my outfit.
In what would have surely insulted Gilderoy to the very core of his being, I had travelled to America without a suitcase full of additional extravagant outfits, merely keeping the clothes I had on my back. Still, as vain as the teenager had been, he had become quite adept at enhancing his appearance, including using common household and tailoring spells to great effect.
Which led to me standing in front of a modest three-story house in the suburbs of New York in a bottle-green overcoat, a golden-embroided surcoat, a decorated shirt and leather pants and boots. A bit… loud, perhaps, but this was NYC in the 80s. The god-awful fashion sense of the 70s may officially be out of style, but loud seemingly still was the reigning slogan of fashion in the Big Apple.
The door finally opens at my insistent knocking, and I'm somewhat taken aback to see a middle-aged woman in the opening. Her eyes track up and down my impeccably dressed form, an appreciative gleam in them as I overcome my surprise and flash her my signature grin.
"Mr. Lockhart? Please, do come in, Mr. Fieldwake is waiting for you in the dining room." She says demurely, stepping inside and allowing me to cross the threshold.
Big mistake, not that she could know that as my smile widens, my charisma on full display.
"Thank you dear. Apologies, I did not realize Mr. Fieldwake did not live alone." I say politely as I follow the woman deeper into the house.
"Oh, I don't live here sir. I'm just the maid. Mr. Fieldwake is getting on in years and so I try to help out around the house." She says brightly, though her smile is somewhat brittle as she glances back at my tall form.
Squib, I'm guessing. Maybe a relative that Fieldwake managed to secure a place for. It wasn't much, but honestly better than Squibs could usually hope for, both here and back in the UK.
"Mr. Fieldwake, sir? Your guest has arrived." She softly calls out as we come into a spacious dining area, a large table with the silverware already set out on it in the centre of the room.
At the other end of the slab of mahogany sits a small, diminutive form, so shrunken I almost mistake it for a House Elf, minus the signature long nose. Watery blue eyes lift up from the news paper they had been staring at, instead settling (with some difficulty) on me instead.
"Ah, ah yes, I suppose. Thank you, Doris. H-have a seat, young man." He speaks up in a croaking voice, thin as paper, indicating the seat across from him with a trembling hand, which he then softly drags through the willowy white whisps that remain of his hair.
I take my smile with a nod of thanks as the now-named Doris politely gives a small bow before leaving the room.
"Mr. Fieldwake, sir, thank you for seeing me on such short notice-"
"W-what? Ah, yes, yes of course. Sad thing, how the Mind Arts are being forgotten. Sad thing… yes. But, ah, but, let's leave that discussion, for later in the night, yes? I am quite hungry and Doris has just prepared a meal for us. It's my dinner time you see." The man mutters and my heart begins to sink.
It was never really my intention to just interview him, but I at least wanted to pick his brain a bit before I attempted eating it, just to make sure I was fully aware of all the challenges involved. Now I'm beginning to question just how much of a brain is left up in there. Wizards can become tremendously old, yes, but clearly they aren't immune to the effect of aging and it doesn't really strike me as a good idea to attempt to eat a mind suffering from Alzheimer's.
I glance at the man with a studying gaze until I'm drawn from my thoughts by the sound of Doris approaching, carrying a large cloche on a silver platter. Setting it down and removing the cloche, she reveals a large roast, which to her credit does in fact look quite amazing. She starts dishing me up a decent helping before getting a beautifully engraved gravy boat and positively drowning my roast in delicious sauce before moving on and serving the old man, setting the impressive gravy boat down on the table.
I compliment Doris on her cooking (which nets me a beaming smile from the otherwise mousy-looking woman) before trying to engage Fieldwake in conversation with the intention of prodding him some more, but the man is distracted by his meal and barely even acknowledges my questions, merely dismissing Doris and focusing on his plate instead.
Between the fact that the man isn't nearly as coherent as I wanted him to be and my own rising hunger, I eventually give an internal shrug as I begin to dig in.
You know what? This genuinely is quite good. I'll have to ask Doris the recipe and then find a chef whose mind I could eat.
I'm about halfway through the meal when I notice something had gone horribly wrong.
First, the sounds in the room have quieted completely. Where before it was filled with the (slightly disgusting) sounds of Fieldwake trying to make his way through his roast without proper dentures, the room was now completely silent save for the light scratches of my cutlery against the plate.
Secondly, there's a somewhat weird feeling on the inside of my mouth. I had at first dismissed it as just being the heavy sauce Doris had used, but the feeling steadily changed from increasingly greasy towards outright oily, to the point my tongue and the insides of my cheeks felt coated in a thin film.
Thirdly, my vision began to darken at the edges as the room slightly began to sway, almost as if we were on board a ship resting in the harbor. The movement was so minute I hadn't even noticed it, but now that I had, I couldn't unsee it.
Slowly, deliberately, I placed my cutlery down on the table, looking up at Fieldwake with an accusing glare. Gone is the bag of bones from before. Where at first he had seemed barely even coherent, those watery blue eyes were now locked on me with laser-eyed focus.
Much like his wand was, gripped so tightly in his gnarled hands, his knuckles stood out white against his wrinkled skin.
Of course. Lockhart you fool! Thinking someone proficient in Occlumency would end up loosing their mind just because of old age! He's been playing you from the start!
I lean back in my seat, hands falling in my lap as I look the aged man dead in the eye.
"Poison?" I ask, my speech feeling heavy and slightly slurred to my own ears.
"Veritaserum, in fact." The man speaks up, his voice still reedy, but having lost the stutter and murmuring from before.
"Why?" I manage to force out, the man gaining a hard smile as his eyes never left mine.
"A British reporter, showing up out of nowhere, decades after I have gone into retirement, eager to speak with me about the Mind Arts? Interested in the effects Legilimency and Occlumency have on the mind, both their own and that of their opponent? You'll just have to forgive me for being overly cautious, young man. You're not the first who has tried to use my knowledge on the Mind Arts for their own gain." He elaborates, his lips thinning as he grabs his wand even tighter.
From the corner of my eye, I can see that Doris had entered the room once again, looking at the scene with wide eyes, but not seeming very surprised. Damn it, Doris, and I even complimented your recipe! Instead, your secret ingredient was Veritaserum all along? For shame.
"Now then, while you may claim to be a reporter, I think it's time I ask the questions here." The aged man says as he licks his lips.
"What is your name?"
"Gilderoy Lockhart." I can hear myself say, the words coming out almost like a reflex and I frown at the ease with which that answer escaped me.
"Why did you seek me out?" the man presses and once again, despite me watching for it this time, the words flow unbidden.
"Because I want to know everything you know about the Mind Arts."
"No… no, if that was true, you'd read my book. Why did you seek me out, specifically? Why did you need me?"
My jaw is clenched, yet I cannot stop myself from answering, though I take small comfort in the way I managed to remain annoyingly vague this time.
"Because I want to know everything you know about the Mind Arts."
It was true, but not in a way that Fieldwake could comprehend. His brow furrows, his bushy eyebrows almost covering his eyes as he shoots me a calculating look.
"Mr. Fieldwake, sir? Ask him about how he intended to accomplish that. It might also tell us if he's operating alone or if we need to watch out for more people."
Doris! I trusted you! I ate your delicious roast!
"Ah, good point dear. Now then, Lockheart: are you alone here?"
"Yes." I say in a pained grunt.
"Good. Good. Who knows you're here?"
"Nobody."
"Well, that makes things easier, I suppose. Now: how did you intend to gain my knowledge on the Mind Arts?"
I lean a bit forward in my chair, staring the old man dead in the eye as I utter the next answer.
"I was going to eat your brain."
Dead silence. Fieldwake just blinks a couple times in sheer stupefaction, and I spot Doris covering her mouth in shock.
"W-what?" he asks with a tremble in his voice and now my grin is on full-blast.
"I am going to eat your brain." I say, letting the Veritaserum do its job freely this time.
Fieldwake takes a few deep breaths as he shifts in his chair, his wand trembling in his feeble hand.
"H-how are you going to that? I have my wand trained on you!"
"I'm going to shoot you in the leg and your wand arm. Then I'll shoot Doris in the leg as well."
"You go for your wand and I'll have your skin splattered across the wall!"
"I'm not going to use a wand."
"Wha-"
That's as far as he gets before a very soft 'plop' rings out across the room interrupting Fieldwake as he suddenly jerks in his chair, blood spurting out from the massive wound that has suddenly appeared in his right knee. The spray of gristle and gore is explosive enough that bits of him land on his maid, startling Doris as she begins screaming bloody murder. The aged wizard's face goes white, and his eyes widen with shock and pain as I rise in a single smooth movement, revealing the gun I had kept levelled at him under the table.
To his credit, probably thanks to his skills in Occlumency, the aged wizard tries to push through the immense pain, his trembling arm coming up as he tries to cast a spell. But I merely shift my aim a bit and squeeze my finger and Mr. Fieldwake now sports a second hole, this one in the lower arm, his wand thrown from his grip as he screams in pain, the only warning having been a second soft 'plop'.
With my free time yesterday (which come to think of it he probably requested so that he could get his hands on the valuable Veritaserum dose) I had used my Maple wand to do some experimentation with the weapons I had confiscated, a field of magic that the adventurous wand seemed particularly suited for.
So far the only wand that hadn't had a time to shine was my Hawthorne wand, whose speciality in curses and curatives hadn't really come up yet. I had to admit I was still somewhat wary about it backfiring, a Gilderoy Lockhart speciality I rather didn't repeat. Better to use the Hawthorne in more controlled environments than this.
In the end though, the Maple wand really had come through for me, giving me vibes of excitement as we tore apart three of the guns I had confiscated, leaning on the knowledge of the criminals in my head to better understand their working as we put them back together again. Four out of the six I had were ruined beyond repair, having been Transfigured into useless lumps of blackened metal and one just was a regular gun again, but this particular six shooter had come out quite special.
It had started off from the parts of a Magnum Smith&Wesson, but parts of it had been enlarged and enchanted so that it now more closely resembled Hellboy's iconic Good Samaritan with a thick long barrel and a smooth handle. Near-completely silent thanks to some repurposed Silencio Charms (speaking of which, Doris is still screaming hysterically over in the corner, so I leisurely take out my trusty Maple and cast the Charm on her as well), the gun could easily be shrunk and brought back to full size in an instant and had several additional enchantments to reduce kickback while increasing velocity.
Until I master Runes though, I won't be able to push the gun much further than this, not that I'm convinced it's entirely worth it considering I already have four sticks of wood that were far more versatile. One thing that could be said for the gun however, which the bleeding Mr. Fieldwake could now attest to, was that it was impossibly fast.
If you weren't prepped beforehand, the bullet would hit you, something that, judging by the pants and screams of Mr. Fieldwake, hurt like a bitch. And my revolver could shoot a dozen more of those bullets as fast as I could squeeze my finger before I needed to reload.
Stalking closer to the miserable looking senior slumped over in his bloodied seat, I leisurely return my weapons to my sleeves after Accio-ing his wand to me and pocketing it, taking out my Silver Lime instead. As I loom over the aged wizard, he glances up at me with eyes dulled from the pain.
"W-why… w-why are you doing this…?"
"Because I need to become more powerful than any creature or wizard alive today." I answer, blinking in surprise.
Oh, right. The Veritaserum. Wait… actually, that gives me an idea as I glance back at my meal and spot something particularly useful.
"Doris. Doris! DORIS!"
The hysterical woman finally snaps her eyes towards me, sitting there in mute terror as she stares at my tall form.
"The Veritaserum, I'm assuming you put it in the gravy, didn't you?"
The woman begins stammering something but being under the effects of the Silencing Charm it's of course useless, so I brusquely interrupt her and instruct her to just nod 'yes' or 'no' instead. My grin becomes predatory when she dips her head in affirmation.
"Be a dear and hand me the gravy boat? Please?" I say with a massive smile, my wand still trained on the bleak looking Fieldwake.
It takes a bit of convincing and coaxing but eventually Doris manages to stand up, walking towards the table on unsteady legs where she collects the gravy boat with trembling hands, shaking so much she almost spills it. As she hands it over towards me, she looks at me with a pleading expression, which is enhanced by the tears that have begun to track through the blood splatters on her cheek, giving her a truly miserable appearance.
Too bad I have been a hardened criminal for over 250 years as of yesterday, so her tears don't affect me in the least.
Shouldn't have poisoned the (otherwise delicious) gravy woman. Honestly, isn't that sacrilegious to you Americans?
Putting the crying Squib out of my mind I instead turn towards my original prey, who's staring up at me in a mixture of pain, rage and sheer, unadulterated fear.
"You know, this could've gone a lot less painfully for you. Not better per se. I was going to eat your brain either way, but now…"
I lean forwards, pushing the tip of my wand in the gaping, messy wound that used to be his knee, causing the aged wizard to scream in pain. The moment he opens his mouth, I place the gravy boat at his lips and begin forcing the piping hot liquid down his throat, though part of it of course gets expelled as the man descends in hacking coughing fits.
"… now, I'm going to have to hurt you instead." I say as I keep going until the gravy boat is completely emptied, at least two-thirds of it now inside Mr. Fieldwake (the rest is splattered over him and across his side of the table).
I grab a firm hold of the whisps on top of his head, pulling it back as he stares up at me with dull eyes as I lean in closer, my grin sharp and my eyes blazing.
"Now then, I think it's finally time that I start asking the questions."
And question him I did. On every aspect of his knowledge related to how the mind defended itself against outside intrusion, how outside intrusion even was done, how the mind can be shut and how the mind can be read instead. Every single shred of knowledge that would inform me on what would happen to my mind and magic should I try to consume the brain of another magical being.
Some of those things Fieldwake honestly didn't know, my particular kind of spell something that he had hardly even speculated on during his career. I wasn't the first to attempt something like this, but it was considered so taboo it was rarely even discussed, especially the way that I went about it, so Fieldwake just couldn't tell me despite the powers of Veritaserum.
It just compels you to tell the truth as you know it, without lies or deception, but it can't make you come to new conclusions of your own or force you to think a certain way. But that was alright: I had other ways of gleaning such information from Fielwake's mind.
I must have stood close to two hours above the feeble man, only stopping halfway through to order Doris to bandage his wounds and administer him several restorative potions because the aged man began slipping away. The moment he was stabilized, I ruthlessly continued my interrogation. I didn't know how long Veritaserum was supposed to last for (which was partly the reason why I had forced the entire gravy boat down the man's throat: the other part was sheer spite) and Doris didn't know either.
So before either the potion or the man expired, I pumped the aged wizard for all that he was worth, before finally I leaned back with a deep sigh, one hand coming up to massage my brow as I went over what I had just learned. One thing that Fieldwake had confirmed from the bat was that my method would only allow me to absorb another wizard's memories, not their magic. Which sucked, but the memories still meant that all their knowledge and skills got transferred as well, so it was still an immense power boost. Additionally, I now had a better idea on how attacking wizarding minds would differ from attack Muggle minds.
Contrary to what some (or perhaps most) Purebloods would tell you, Muggles weren't universally and inherently less intelligent than wizards. That being said, their minds were definitely more malleable, simply because they lacked the (sufficient) internal magic which would provide a natural defence to their minds, memories and perception.
However, while Muggles were more vulnerable, this thankfully didn't translate to wizards being invulnerable, which made sense. Otherwise, Lockhart's Obliviates wouldn't have worked, not to mention the Veritaserum which I had just personally experienced.
Place two wizards mind to mind though… well, what would happen then was anyone's guess.
Only one way to find I suppose. I surged forwards, my Silver Lime wand placed firmly against his temple as I put my other hand on the centre of Fieldwake's forehead, almost as if I was a priest giving him my blessing.
"Momento Ipso!" I called out in a strong voice and just like with my Muggle victims, a silvery ball of mist began to rise from Fieldwake's skin.
There was a definite difference though, as I felt an unfamiliar resistance as I tried to 'pull' on the man's memories. They felt heavier somehow and I had the sensation of having to break through a dam of sorts as I tried to wrest the man's mind from his head. It was a slow-going process, made even more tiresome by the fact that I couldn't force it too much or I risked snapping the connection to his memories completely, which would just fragment his mind instead of transferring it.
But, while the going was slow, it did go. Bit by bit, strand after strand, whisp after whisp, I pulled a whole tangle of memories from the man's head. When the last shimmer of energy rose from his skin, the man sagged back into his seat with a deep sigh, pretty much expired on the spot due to the strain of the spell.
Exerting my magic on the mass of memories held to the tip of my wand (which was noticeably larger than similar constructs I had torn from the Muggle criminals, but whether that was a result of their lack of magic or just Fieldwake's longer lifespan I didn't know), I took a deep breath myself before closing my eyes, focusing intently and raising the tangle to my own forehead. I briefly noticed Doris rushing to her master's side, kneeling next to the man as she tried to take care of him, but then my eyes were closed and the silvery mist drifted through my skin into my head.
The pain was immense, just like before, but more than that there was a definite feeling of 'weight' that settled in my head as I sunk back into the nearest chair with a groan of discomfort. Once again, a reel of memories played itself out in my mind, but they felt more real, embedded in my past somehow, each scene lingering longer and feeling more like I was truly present there before moving onto the next one. But as the Fieldwake in my mind goes from boy to man, I am there every step of the way as he begins to advance in his career, learning alongside him as he does, even while his knowledge gets added to my own. Steadily, the more he and I learn about the way the mind works, I begin to take hold over the film reel, exerting my own control over it.
Within the depths of my own mind, disconnected from the thoughts that are whirling up above me, a Mind Palace steadily is getting stamped out of the ground. The reel itself begins to change as well: instead of a movie of young Fieldwake's life, it instead falls apart, or 'spreads out' into several different partitions, each one focused on a different aspect or skill that the man had gathered in his life. The greater the Mind Palace becomes, the faster the life of Fieldwake is being torn apart into individual reels and skills and knowledge, his mind (ordered and tightly packed, as expected from an Occlumens) being dissected for my own gain.
The process keeps accelerating, Fieldwake's knowledge rapidly becoming my own, to the point that no more than 15 minutes have passed before I'm left with loose, disjointed memories from a life not my own that I throw in the deepest depths of my Mind Palace. I'd like to stay down here in the depths of my own being for a bit longer, go over and explore everything Fieldwake's knowledge on the structuring of the mind had allowed be to create here, but I realize that I'll have to leave that for later.
Because I had just arrived to the last day of Fieldwake's life and remembered something that he had entrusted to a much younger-looking Doris: the hidden compartment in his bedroom where he kept an old hunting rifle.
Opening my eyes, I roll off the chair, picking it up with one hand and throwing it towards the doorway of the dining room, where just at that moment Doris rounded the corner, the rifle in her hands almost looking comically oversized if it weren't pointed at me.
With a still-silent scream (jeez, just how long did a Silencing Charm last anyways), she pulls the trigger, reducing the flying piece of furniture to shrapnel as I dive for cover. Still silently screaming and sobbing, Doris works the lever of the rifle and it's only my past experience with CoD games set in WW II that I now recognize the M1 Garand the small woman is struggling with.
Sheesh, talk about antiques. How the hell did a NYC wizard get his hands on one of those museum pieces anyways!
Standing up to my full height, I quickly stalk towards the panicking woman, who just manages to slam the lever back with a silent sob as I reach her. I don't even need an Expelliarmus, I just sock the small woman straight in the jaw, sending her crashing to the ground and throwing the rifle from her hands.
These hands are rated E for Everyone.
Leaning down over the distraught woman, I place my Silver Lime wand against her temple.
"Sorry about this Doris. Wrong time wrong place I suppose. Know that Francis truly appreciated your help, even if he didn't aways show it."
She's frozen against the floor, her entire form still as she stares up at me with terror-stricken eyes.
"Momento Ipso!"
And then said eyes roll back in her head as I tear the woman's memories out of her head. The tangle of silvery threads hanging from the tip of my wand is noticeably smaller than Fieldwake's, but still larger than any other memory bundle I tore from the Muggle criminals.
I bow my head and close my eyes as I place the memories of Doris against my forehead, allowing them to seep inside my skull. But now I'm braced against the upcoming pain and rush of memories, taking a firm 'hold' of them and directing them from within the safety of my Mind Palace. I tear the thread of memories apart like one would rip apart a ball of yarn, directing it to my wishes, instead of being hijacked by them as they rage inside my mind. Knowledge and skills (such as the potions she gladly made for her aged uncle, the one field of magic that squibs could make limited use of) get filed away and absorbed, useless memories and painful experiences (such as the crushing day where she was told she had no magical talent) are compressed and submerged. The skill in Occlumency that absorbing Fieldwake gave me would allow me to repurpose those memories in the future, an added layer of obfuscation and defence against possible intruders.
Sorting and filing and cataloguing as the memories kept following each other, I rush through the life of Doris Clearfield, 42, unmarried and childless, exiled by her own relatives and eventually hired by a distantly related uncle. A sad life, that had been cut short and now only lived on in the partitions of my mind that housed the parts of her that I had chosen to keep.
Opening my eyes, I look down sadly at the woman lying still on the hardwood floor, mouth agape and eyes unseeing. Rising heavily to my full height, I once again take my massive revolver, and with a heavy heart put two bullets in the woman's chest, before Accio-ing some random jewellery from the nearby rooms to myself. Several slightly altered common house-hold charms send drawers flying as furniture is upended and paintings are torn from the wall, leaving a huge mess on the ground floor of the house.
On my way out, I carefully close the door behind me, before furtively glancing up and down the street and checking the windows of the nearby houses. Seeing that I was unobserved, I turned back to the now closed door and kicked it in. As it heavily swung open, splinters still falling from the ruined doorframe, I turned around and Apparated back to my hotel room.
A wizarding home was likely charmed and warded, so I wasn't sure just how much (if anything) the outside world had heard of the struggle that had gone inside, but better not to risk it. Making it seem like a home invasion gone wrong should make sure this landed on the desk of the NYPD and not MACUSA. Fieldwake was an aged wizard who hadn't been seen in the public eye for a long time now and hardly anyone in the magical government knew about, much less cared about, his Squib niece. Even if someone in the American Auror branch got his death certificate on their desk, they (hopefully) wouldn't find it suspicious that a frail old man had been taken off guard by Muggle home invaders (after all, the coroner's report would include the gunshots the man had suffered, and what wizard would ever stoop to using a gun?).
Arriving back in my hotel room with a crack, I slowly sank down on the edge of the bed, Doris' face (sometimes old, sometimes when she was just a little girl that stood upon my doorstep so long ago) constantly dancing at the forefront of my mind, bloodied tear tracks running down her face.
It was a shame I had to kill her but leaving her alive would've raised too many flags and raised too many breadcrumbs.
… well, at least her roast recipe hadn't died with her. Though I think I'll make her sauce without Veritaserum next time.
Fun Fact: Based on the outline JK made for Order of the Phoenix, it looks like Rowling thought about calling Dolores Umbridge Elvira Umbridge instead.
AN: Well, this chapter turned quite dark. Maybe too dark? Let me know, I'm interested to hear your thoughts.