Chapter 5
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters, they belong to the genius that is J.K. Rowling. I just own Alex Potter. I'm not making any profit from writing this.
This chapter isn't betaed, any mistakes are my own and English is definitely not my first language. Constructive criticism is much appreciated, flames are not.
Alex's thoughts
Alex didn't know how she created this mindscape. One day, she'd just opened her 'eyes' into an empty house. She had changed it over time, making it bigger, decorating the rooms somewhat and giving everything a purpose. Once she'd realised that she wasn't dreaming, that she'd died and been reborn into a once fictional world, one filled with mind readers, well… she was staring at the result of that. A huge black sphere surrounded her mind, blue currents of 'electricity' running in random patterns on its surface. They'd hurt anyone trying to pierce the sphere and, in theory, they would absorb any magical attacks and throw them back.
If someone did somehow manage to get past the sphere, the inside was covered in 'stars' that would burn anyone stupid enough to come inside. The only way in was through a 'portal' that she opened for Harry to her receiving room. It would throw him (and anyone else) out as soon as he tried getting further inside her head. Harry had a migraine that kept him in bed for hours after he was stupid enough to try that. Alex had been too pissed off at the breach of trust to pity him, it took weeks before she allowed him inside her head again.
The inside of the sphere was a huge garden filled with colourful flowers circling the house, their perfume would ensnare an intruder and force him to relieve the helplessness and darkness of her coma. While he or she was paralyzed, the three gigantic eagles with sharp beaks and metal talons patrolling the skies would swoop down and tear them apart. They would also 'murder' anyone foolish enough to try and fly past them to reach the house.
If someone did slip free from the flowers before the eagles could hurt them, the only way to escape was through the forest of towering oak trees with Whomping Willows disguised throughout. If someone managed to stop the murderous trees via the knot in their trunks (a feature that was so intrinsic to them in her mind that she hadn't managed to remove it) they would have the Beasts hunting the forest to contend with.
A hulking panther made of hatred and rage that was solely the fault of Petunia Dursley. She'd taught her how to hate, the necessity to hide her rage until it gathered in her chest and scorched her throat. It was no wonder that beast breathed fire, a flame that would never harm her trees or anything in her mind but would make the intruder feel the same agony she'd felt when that woman burned her. It would make them vulnerable to the massive wolf made of grief and desperation whose bite would make the attacker relieve their worst memories. The beauty of it was that Alex could later see these memories through the eyes of her wolf and gain valuable information on her enemies.
Of course, all this was entirely untested; except for the receiving rooms' defenses, none of the other features had ever been used, but this was her mind and only her rules applied. No one and nothing else had power here. This was her Kingdom and she was Queen. (This was hers, the only thing that had always been hers. Her body and magic were too, but some days she drowned remembering that this body wasn't hers, the magic running through her veins was too alien, this life was never meant to exist)
The house that she defended so ruthlessly stood in the very center of the sphere and held everything that she was and had been. It was a three story wooden cabin with the basement level hidden beneath the earth. That's where she kept her magical core, a ball of energy with tendrils continuously moving inside it and across its surface. It was warm and comforting like napping in the sun, refreshing like that spring she'd bathed in after a day of trekking she'd swore never to repeat and protective like she'd learned to be stuck at the mercy of a woman who hated their existence.
There were seven rooms in total on the upper levels. The entrance door led straight into the sitting room with red couches, a coffee table and a tv screen. The last held every movie she'd ever watched in as much detail as she could remember, most were fuzzy since she'd stopped watching and remembering them after her rebirth, too busy dealing with her new situation. She wasn't really bothered about that, she didn't need them. The only memories that really mattered were in the two story library at the back of the house. It held every book she ever read and every memory from Before and Now.
That room she made sure to visit every day and remove the 'dust' from the more useful memories. She kept the memories of the Harry Potter franchise exceptionally clean together with every memory she ever had of this life. From before, she kept her parents' faces, the sound of their voices and a few precious moments with them. She kept nothing but vague impressions of her friends and life from before. Those memories hurt too much, she had to let them go.
The other rooms were simpler, the receiving room for Harry to the right of the sitting room, the kitchen to the right where she kept all the memories of food. The recipes, the tastes and smells… even though she didn't know how to cook (even Petunia, the cruel taskmaster that she was, had given up on teaching her), she'd always loved eating. She was lucky that Harry liked cooking and was more than willing to try the recipes she suggested. The Dursleys certainly never complained.
On the uppermost floor, there was a bathroom that she created because she couldn't imagine a house without a toilet and a bedroom where… well, let's just say that she had been a very hormonal teenager with no boyfriend (she had been very shy then, ok?) and a fervid imagination. The result of that mix of hormone and fantasy was gathering dust in a drawer somewhere while Alex happily enjoyed her reprieve from puberty. The last room on the upper floor was a study where she tried, and failed, plotting for the future and kept the cliff notes version of canon readily available.
Plus several fanon things that she thought made absolute sense or just liked the idea of. There was even a list for the things she wasn't sure if they were canon or not and another one with the changes she'd noticed. Vernon Dursley being a better human being than Petunia Dursley was at the top of the list, closely followed by 'Severus Snape actually took a magical vow to protect us'. Alex looked up from her list at the stretch of wall above the door, where her internal clock stood. They had to go cook dinner.
