The Ministry of Magic.
I'd been there before, but only once, with my father when i was five years old, so I couldn't remember very much. Riding down through the elevator was something I did remember though; I'd been clinging to my father's leg, frightened of the darkness. Lucas stated our business, but I was too busy reliving my memories to notice what he said. The phone booth started sinking, and I leaned against one of the sides, crossing my arms over my chest.
Lucas hadn't said a word since we got off the train, giving me ample time to be driven crazy over why we were in London and the Ministry of Magic on my supposed detention. Millicent and the others would hang Lucas when we came back to Hogwarts; snatching me away to London for no apparent reason, and not telling anyone just after Snape's seemingly disappeared was not a good idea, when dealing with Millicent. I was also able to puzzle over the explosion in Lucas's classroom two days earlier. All of a sudden, things just started flying and breaking. Odd that.
We stepped out of the phone booth, and Lucas whacked me over the head again with his wand. Apparently, I reappeared again, because people looked at me, not through me. Someone running through from the Floo to the elevator nearly knocked me over, but stumbled a bit and apologized severely before rushing off again. I ignored him. The ceiling had me distracted and I barely even noticed Lucas talking to me until he snapped his fingers in front of my nose to get my attention. Refocusing on eye-level, I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yes?"
"We do have all day, but if you keep looking at the ceiling like that, you'll break your neck," He said, "And we have business to attend to."
"You never told me why we're here." I pointed out as we wandered off towards the elevator.
"I didn't? Must've slipped my mind," He replied absently as we stepped into the elevator and he pressed a button. "How thoughtless of me."
I waited, and waited, but he didn't say anything more. Since the elevator was full of people going up and down as well, I didn't get the chance to ask again. Several people left on Level Four, as well as a few of the paper- plane like memos. One of them was carrying a cage with what looked to be a cross-breed between a bird and a lizard. A group of ragged looking wizards, one of them still smoking, got off on Level Two, while someone I vaguely recognised as the Weasley who had been a prefect in our second year was with us all the way up to Level Five. Lucas made no move to get off, and soon we were two of the very few left in the elevator. Some severe looking Ministry officials, who, would they stand any straighter, could have been used as rulers. A foreign looking wizard, impossible to determine where he came from, though he looked Slavic, a witch in dark blue robes and glasses, an old wizard bent with age, and us. The elevator kept rising, past Level Seven and Eight, before grinding to a halt on Level Nine.
"Level Nine, Department of Mysteries." A cool female voice announced as the doors slid open.
Lucas stepped out, and I hurried to follow him before the doors closed. Still without explanation to why we were hanging about the creepiest place in the Ministry of Magic, I followed close behind Lucas, worried that I'd get lost if I didn't. The Department of Mysteries was creepy to begin with, and the knowledge that Potter had fought Voldemort in here only made it creepier. It seemed deserted though. No one was walking in the corridor, but then again there was only one door at the end of it and they might well be there.
"This is getting rather annoying; why are we in the Department of Mysteries?" I sighed, annoyed by now. "Are we looking for something Potter dropped when he was here last?"
"We are meeting some friends of mine, as I have told you time and time again, Zabini," Lucas opened the door, "Now shut up."
Grumbling, I did so. I couldn't have spoken if I wanted to when we stepped beyond the door. Everything inside was black. The walls were black, the doors were black, the ceiling was black, the cold floor was black, and polished so that it looked as if we were walking on black ice. The only thing in the room that wasn't black was the fire set on pedestal in the middle of the floor. Lucas stopped in front of it, and looked around. I stared around the room in amazement, trying not to gape too much, and almost stumbled over Lucas's robes before he caught my shoulder.
"Steady now, Zabini. Wouldn't want you catching yourself on fire." He said. "Linden does hate when people catch fire anywhere close to his books."
Suddenly, one of the doors flew open, and a man who looked ridiculously like an old Muggle Professor, though no older than forty came running into the black room. He was chasing something small with many legs, which disappeared through another door as he slowed to a halt just before he hit Lucas. He straightened his glasses, peered through them at me and Lucas, though he barely seemed to notice me, and blinked.
"Oh dear." He said. "I should remember your name, shouldn't I? I'm sure I should. William, perhaps? Or Cassius? No, that's the caretaker. I'm afraid I don't remember you. Dreadfully sorry, I really am."
"No need to be sorry, Linden." Lucas shook his head, "I'm neither Cassius nor William. My name is Vincent Lucas, and I'm a good friend of yours. If you took a moment and collected your hopelessly absent memories you'd remember the time when I saved you from some rather enraged goblins. Among other things. But no matter; I'm here for another reason than to discuss memories with you. I wrote you a letter yesterday."
"I did get a letter from a Vincent yesterday, yes," Linden nodded. I was still rather surprised at his absent-mindedness, and didn't really notice what they said after that. Coming back to my senses some moments later, I refocused on the conversation.
"Is this the lad?" Linden pointed at me. "Looks rather thin, doesn't he? Doesn't your parents feed you, boy?"
"I'm perfectly - "I started, but Lucas broke in.
"- Incapable of feeding yourself. You drink a lot of coffee, and eat a lot of measly sandwiches. No wonder you black out all the time." Lucas raised an eyebrow, "Though there's another reason for that. This is Linden Helling, a good friend of mine when he happens to remember it. He's a bit absent-minded, but I should thing you're able to handle it. He is going to explain some things to you, while I go and arrange some personal business of mine."
And so I was left alone in a completely black room, with someone who barely remembered his own name, who was supposed to explain things to me. Great. Just fabulous. Lucas really needed to be beheaded, at soonest possible convenience. And preferably buried with a stake through his heart. Resembling a vampire that much wasn't healthy. One might wake up one morning to discover that the neighbours has buried one in one's own backyard with the help of a stake and some garlic. Not a nice experience, as my Great Uncle Drathil told me, even though neither of those things work on real vampires. He claimed he still had a scar. They hurt, but don't kill. Linden shook my shoulder and brought me back to the here-and-now part of procedures.
"Yes?"
"How about some tea?" The question came out of the blue, as did my answer.
"Have you got coffee?"
"If we can chase down the coffee-machine, yes, otherwise, no." Was Linden's rather cryptic answer. "Come along, we do need to sit down. There are a few things I might be obligated to explain to you, if Vincent's suspicions are right. They usually are. I'm sure of that, though I can't really remember an example right now."
"Ah." Was all I could think of to say.
The next room proved to be a library, even larger than the one at school. Linden had just chosen a door, seemingly at random, and opened it, and inside was the library. And I was pretty sure it was the same door we came in through. At the very end of the bookshelves, a lone candle fluttered, and it seemed impossibly far away. Linden whistled as he went, and I followed more cautiously. The Department of Mysteries was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the strangest place I had ever visited, and that's saying something, since I had spent nearly six years at Hogwarts.
Linden gestured vaguely at a chair in front of what I assumed was his desk, and I sat down. He sat down behind the desk and began moving some parchment and books around, so that he could see his desktop. It was without a doubt the most disorganised desktop I had ever seen, up to and including Lucas's own after the glass-shards started flying. I turned my attention elsewhere as he let books fly. The whole Department seemed empty, which surprised me. The Department of Mysteries, who was guarding some of the more dangerous items in the wizarding world, ought to have a better security system, or at least more employees. An empty Department just didn't make any sense.
"So, Vincent tells me you've been in the hospital wing quite often this week," Linden said, giving up on organising his desk. "Mind explaining why?"
"I really don't see a reason for that, but since Lucas dumped me here and disappeared, I guess I don't have a reason not to." I shrugged, "First time was because of a fist-fight with Weasley, which was fully justified. I broke his jaw, he broke my nose, gave me two black eyes and broke a couple of my ribs. Pomfrey healed them, and I was sent to Lucas for my detention. He told me what Weasley had said to worm his way out of detention, and I got angry. Then, all of a sudden, things started flying around. I blacked out, and ended up in the infirmary again."
"Blacked out you say?" Linden straightened his glasses, which had an unfortunate tendency to slip down the right side of his nose, "How interesting. Basil!"
The last shouted statement had no connection whatsoever to what we'd talked about, and I jumped. Linden had the same tendency as my sister, it seemed, to talk about many things at once, and never once touching the ground called sanity. Hearing hurried footfalls from the bookshelves behind me, I spun around in my seat and looked into the shadows. A man, about a head shorter than I was, came running out of the library, carrying a stack of books. He stumbled over some books on the floor, and the books he was carrying flew all over Linden and me. He straightened up immediately, and looked apologetic.
"S-sorry, d-didn't mean t-to t-t-trip!" He stammered nervously. "What did you want? The coffee-machine'th gone mithing again, by the way."
"Stop lisping Basil." Linden said tiredly, "And the stammering is rather annoying too. What is it with you and speech impediments anyway? No, never mind, we have more important things to attend to. This here is Blaise Zabini. He blacked out two days ago, for no apparent reason. Have you seen my Algernon Bagshot book around here lately?"
"Anja was reading it earlier," Basil shrugged, "She's on her cigarette break right now. Do you want me to get her?"
When not stammering or lisping, Basil spoke with a Scottish accent. Apparently, his speech impediments were imagined, because he spoke without the slightest hitch in his voice. Racing off again through the bookshelves, shouting for this mysterious Anja, he stumbled again, but didn't fall luckily. Once again, I cursed Lucas's existence and his decision to leave me with these nutcases. Basil especially; Linden was just absent-minded and not prone to explain things properly. Basil had made up speech impediments, or so it appeared, and a trouble with keeping his balance. One could only imagine that Anja was just as bad.
"Now, as soon as Anja hands me my book, I'm sure we can solve this," Linden tried to be comforting, but stopped smiling as he caught the look on my face. "Oh dear, we haven't gotten off to a very good start, have we? You will have to excuse our disorganisation; the lack of hands to organise us and the severe cut in budget the Minister has forced upon us has started to show. We're short-handed as it is, and it's not getting any better. Hopefully, we will be able to help you anyway."
"Thanks," I mumbled, "So that's why the place is so empty."
"Yes. Unfortunately, we have been forced to let many people go. Too many people. We can hardly manage as it is; horrible that we would have to Obliviate so many people just because the Ministry doesn't see fit to give us a large enough budget to pay the wages." Linden didn't look happy.
"Obliviate?" That was news to me.
"Of course; this is the most secret place in the known world; anyone who works here has to be Obliviated when they retire or are forced to leave their position," Linden blinked, surprised I didn't know, "It's only common sense."
It was, really. Having several people running around with knowledge of what was going on inside the Department of Mysteries was just crazy. Not to mention dangerous. Obliviating people made sense, but Obliviating people couldn't be a nice thing to do every other day. Obliviation was a sort of mind-rape, forcibly removing and replacing memories, and even though I'd never attempted the spell myself, I could imagine that it wasn't very comfortable to do it. What really got me though, was the budget cutbacks that Fudge had forced on the Department. Those didn't make any sense at all. I opened my mouth to ask further, but was interrupted by Basil returning with a blonde woman in a tow.
"What did you want, Linden?" She asked. "I don't like cutting my cigarette break short. You know that."
"I merely wanted to know if you'd seen my book, the one by Bagshot, on mental diseases and memory loss." Linden said mildly, smiling a bit.
"It's right in front of you," Anja rolled her eyes, "You daft old bat. Who's this thin streak of misery?"
"Ah. This is Blaise Zabini, he's here because of something which happened two days ago. Thank you." Linden said, picking up a heavy book in front of him and leafing through it.
"Zabini? The fire-accident?" Anja asked, "What's he doing here? He'd want to go to the Department of Magical Law, to settle all legal issues."
"He blacked out for no reason, and Vincent took him here," Linden replied, nose-deep in the book.
"Oh, Vincent brought him here. That makes it alright, doesn't it?" Anja wondered, sounding incredibly sarcastic. "As if we don't have a lot on our hands already!"
"Well, I'm sorry, I just blacked out and things started flying around and I wound up in the hospital wing for the second time in twenty-four hours, don't let me bother you." I snapped, annoyed with her attitude. It wasn't as it was my fault that I was there. "And for your information, I'm not too fond of Lucas either; he deserves to be beheaded for dragging me off to London and dumping me with you for no reason at all, you know."
Silence descended for a few moments after my outburst. Linden peered over the edge of his book, Basil, who had been dusting off the bookshelves, halted in his movements and stared at me. Anja herself, still with a cigarette in her hand, smoking, looked at me in surprise. I probably shouldn't have snapped at her like that, but it was too late to take it back. I was tired of being kept in the dark, angry at both her and Lucas, and my head was still feeling fussy after I'd passed out. And no one would explain anything to me. It drove me mad. Suddenly, Anja started grinning.
"Well, well, well; the serpent has teeth." She chuckled, "I didn't mean no harm, Zabini. It's the stress of just us three managing the Department getting to me."
"Just the three of you? That's monstrous! No one can work like that!" I exclaimed, surprised. I would have talked further, but Linden slammed the book down on the desk again, grinning widely and frightening the life out of me.
"There it is! Now, Mr Zabini if you would just sit quietly, we'll have this solved in no time. Do you have any objections to me poking around in your memories? I will have to know exactly what happened to ascertain how to deal with it." He smiled.
"Go right ahead. The most exciting thing you'll find in there is cobwebs anyway." I shrugged and leaned back in my chair.
After a chuckle, Linden closed his eyes and concentrated. I closed my eyes as well, and stopped thinking as much as I could. Images of memories swirled past in my mind. My first time on a broom, only a feet off the ground at the age of four. Marise flinging snowballs at me, laughing. The Triwizard Tournament maze, and the red sparks. Potter bent over Diggory's body. Granger helping me downstairs. Millicent laughing. Draco and Pansy screaming at each other. "I'm frightfully sorry, it's rather hard to move around in here." Linden said suddenly. Potter and Granger laughing at something, Weasley lying on the floor, laughing as well. Snape, in one of the rare genuine smiles he wore. Lucas red eyes. Glass breaking. Wood cracking. My knees hitting the floor. "Finally. This is the right one. Let's replay it."
The memory swirled by, though slower than the actual event. Distantly, I could hear, or rather feel Linden speaking to himself or the others. After I'd run through the memory once, I was moved further back, to the Defence lessons. Images of Lucas flashed by, of me sitting in the library arguing with Granger. The duel with Potter. Memories of pain and exhaustion. Suddenly, it stopped. I opened my eyes again and stared at Linden.
By all rights, my head should be hurting. Somewhere, far off, it was hurting. But I didn't feel it as I should have. Something served like a damper between the ache and my concept of pain. Blinking a few times, I wondered why I wasn't lying on the floor, throwing up because of my headache. I should have been, but I wasn't.
"How interesting," Linden mumbled, "How very fascinating. I know what's wrong now."
"Well, what is it?" I snapped, without meaning to.
"It appears that during this duel you had, you exhausted yourself." Linden squinted at me, "Not just physically, but you drained your magical reserves. It was very, very fortunate that you did rest up after that, and not attempt to do any spells."
"Why?"
"It would have killed you." Linden sounded very serious all of a sudden. "Draining your reserves and then doing magic would have resulted in severe physical and mental shock, and ultimately your death. You, however, had sense enough to rest. But you didn't rest nearly enough. You went on to attend lessons and do spells and other magic too soon. You lived on scraping the bottom of your reserves the whole time, and it wore away on your mind and your powers. Finally, after both physical and magical wear on you, you snapped. That's why you blacked out."
"Why did I snap, as you call it? Why did the glass start flying? Why did the wood break?" I pressed, not satisfied with his explanation, though it did make many things clearer.
"How will I explain this?" Linden sighed, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. "All but the most unusual of individuals have a catch, a stopper in their head, that prevents them from doing magic any other way than with a wand. Without their wands, they're crippled, almost Muggles, but not quite. There is always the ability to do tiny things, almost unnoticeable, without a wand. Before you ever have a wand, you perform magic. That's what makes Hogwarts send letters for you. But as soon as you get a wand, it bonds with you. It becomes your wand, exclusively. No one else can use it, and you can't use any other wand. Because of the catch in your head. You with me so far?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now comes the difficult part. Excessive use of magic, on your part the exhausting duel and living on your reserves for months, scraping the bottom of the barrel so to speak, does things to you. It erodes that catch in your head, crumbles it. Makes your magic run wild. You lose your mental grip on magic." He smiled as if to reassure me of something, "In your case, even though long habit kept you going for those months, the force of the magical powers let loose when you lost that grip was enough to shatter glass and break wood. Never in my experience at least, have there been quite such violent reaction to losing control over one's mind."
"So you're basically telling me I've gone mad?" I asked.
"A bit more controlled than that, but yes, that is the gist of it." He nodded.
Silence. Anja had taken a vacant chair and was puffing away on her cigarette, despite Linden's obvious disapproval. Basil had, in lack of a chair, taken place on the floor, and was flipping through a book. Apparently, they had heard Linden speak of these things before and wasn't very impressed. Which was a bit odd, really. Hopefully, people didn't go insane on regular basis around here. I really hoped they didn't.
"I will speak to Vincent about your lessons, and possible visitation hours here." Linden continued. "And I will write a notification to Headmaster Dumbledore of course, to make it official. Ah, welcome back, Vincent."
"Got over your memory loss, did you?" Lucas said as he appeared like a ghost behind my chair.
"Yes. You were right about this one as well, Vincent." Linden nodded towards me, "He'll need training of course, but we can take care of that."
"Training?" I interrupted, "Can you just make it go away?"
"No. We can't. Once you lose the control, you can't get it back. You can establish a new one, but never get back the one you had before." Linden said. "I'm afraid you'll have to relearn everything you know. The only other way out if is to block your magic completely, and that would eventually drive you insane."
"As if I'm not mad enough already," I groaned, and buried my head in my hands.
It was now official; this day was rotten. I had taken a one-way trip to hell.
*****'
Ending Notes; poor little Blaise. Ah well, the end of the chapter might have been a little sudden, but I assure you, the next one will be up soon as possible.
I'd been there before, but only once, with my father when i was five years old, so I couldn't remember very much. Riding down through the elevator was something I did remember though; I'd been clinging to my father's leg, frightened of the darkness. Lucas stated our business, but I was too busy reliving my memories to notice what he said. The phone booth started sinking, and I leaned against one of the sides, crossing my arms over my chest.
Lucas hadn't said a word since we got off the train, giving me ample time to be driven crazy over why we were in London and the Ministry of Magic on my supposed detention. Millicent and the others would hang Lucas when we came back to Hogwarts; snatching me away to London for no apparent reason, and not telling anyone just after Snape's seemingly disappeared was not a good idea, when dealing with Millicent. I was also able to puzzle over the explosion in Lucas's classroom two days earlier. All of a sudden, things just started flying and breaking. Odd that.
We stepped out of the phone booth, and Lucas whacked me over the head again with his wand. Apparently, I reappeared again, because people looked at me, not through me. Someone running through from the Floo to the elevator nearly knocked me over, but stumbled a bit and apologized severely before rushing off again. I ignored him. The ceiling had me distracted and I barely even noticed Lucas talking to me until he snapped his fingers in front of my nose to get my attention. Refocusing on eye-level, I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yes?"
"We do have all day, but if you keep looking at the ceiling like that, you'll break your neck," He said, "And we have business to attend to."
"You never told me why we're here." I pointed out as we wandered off towards the elevator.
"I didn't? Must've slipped my mind," He replied absently as we stepped into the elevator and he pressed a button. "How thoughtless of me."
I waited, and waited, but he didn't say anything more. Since the elevator was full of people going up and down as well, I didn't get the chance to ask again. Several people left on Level Four, as well as a few of the paper- plane like memos. One of them was carrying a cage with what looked to be a cross-breed between a bird and a lizard. A group of ragged looking wizards, one of them still smoking, got off on Level Two, while someone I vaguely recognised as the Weasley who had been a prefect in our second year was with us all the way up to Level Five. Lucas made no move to get off, and soon we were two of the very few left in the elevator. Some severe looking Ministry officials, who, would they stand any straighter, could have been used as rulers. A foreign looking wizard, impossible to determine where he came from, though he looked Slavic, a witch in dark blue robes and glasses, an old wizard bent with age, and us. The elevator kept rising, past Level Seven and Eight, before grinding to a halt on Level Nine.
"Level Nine, Department of Mysteries." A cool female voice announced as the doors slid open.
Lucas stepped out, and I hurried to follow him before the doors closed. Still without explanation to why we were hanging about the creepiest place in the Ministry of Magic, I followed close behind Lucas, worried that I'd get lost if I didn't. The Department of Mysteries was creepy to begin with, and the knowledge that Potter had fought Voldemort in here only made it creepier. It seemed deserted though. No one was walking in the corridor, but then again there was only one door at the end of it and they might well be there.
"This is getting rather annoying; why are we in the Department of Mysteries?" I sighed, annoyed by now. "Are we looking for something Potter dropped when he was here last?"
"We are meeting some friends of mine, as I have told you time and time again, Zabini," Lucas opened the door, "Now shut up."
Grumbling, I did so. I couldn't have spoken if I wanted to when we stepped beyond the door. Everything inside was black. The walls were black, the doors were black, the ceiling was black, the cold floor was black, and polished so that it looked as if we were walking on black ice. The only thing in the room that wasn't black was the fire set on pedestal in the middle of the floor. Lucas stopped in front of it, and looked around. I stared around the room in amazement, trying not to gape too much, and almost stumbled over Lucas's robes before he caught my shoulder.
"Steady now, Zabini. Wouldn't want you catching yourself on fire." He said. "Linden does hate when people catch fire anywhere close to his books."
Suddenly, one of the doors flew open, and a man who looked ridiculously like an old Muggle Professor, though no older than forty came running into the black room. He was chasing something small with many legs, which disappeared through another door as he slowed to a halt just before he hit Lucas. He straightened his glasses, peered through them at me and Lucas, though he barely seemed to notice me, and blinked.
"Oh dear." He said. "I should remember your name, shouldn't I? I'm sure I should. William, perhaps? Or Cassius? No, that's the caretaker. I'm afraid I don't remember you. Dreadfully sorry, I really am."
"No need to be sorry, Linden." Lucas shook his head, "I'm neither Cassius nor William. My name is Vincent Lucas, and I'm a good friend of yours. If you took a moment and collected your hopelessly absent memories you'd remember the time when I saved you from some rather enraged goblins. Among other things. But no matter; I'm here for another reason than to discuss memories with you. I wrote you a letter yesterday."
"I did get a letter from a Vincent yesterday, yes," Linden nodded. I was still rather surprised at his absent-mindedness, and didn't really notice what they said after that. Coming back to my senses some moments later, I refocused on the conversation.
"Is this the lad?" Linden pointed at me. "Looks rather thin, doesn't he? Doesn't your parents feed you, boy?"
"I'm perfectly - "I started, but Lucas broke in.
"- Incapable of feeding yourself. You drink a lot of coffee, and eat a lot of measly sandwiches. No wonder you black out all the time." Lucas raised an eyebrow, "Though there's another reason for that. This is Linden Helling, a good friend of mine when he happens to remember it. He's a bit absent-minded, but I should thing you're able to handle it. He is going to explain some things to you, while I go and arrange some personal business of mine."
And so I was left alone in a completely black room, with someone who barely remembered his own name, who was supposed to explain things to me. Great. Just fabulous. Lucas really needed to be beheaded, at soonest possible convenience. And preferably buried with a stake through his heart. Resembling a vampire that much wasn't healthy. One might wake up one morning to discover that the neighbours has buried one in one's own backyard with the help of a stake and some garlic. Not a nice experience, as my Great Uncle Drathil told me, even though neither of those things work on real vampires. He claimed he still had a scar. They hurt, but don't kill. Linden shook my shoulder and brought me back to the here-and-now part of procedures.
"Yes?"
"How about some tea?" The question came out of the blue, as did my answer.
"Have you got coffee?"
"If we can chase down the coffee-machine, yes, otherwise, no." Was Linden's rather cryptic answer. "Come along, we do need to sit down. There are a few things I might be obligated to explain to you, if Vincent's suspicions are right. They usually are. I'm sure of that, though I can't really remember an example right now."
"Ah." Was all I could think of to say.
The next room proved to be a library, even larger than the one at school. Linden had just chosen a door, seemingly at random, and opened it, and inside was the library. And I was pretty sure it was the same door we came in through. At the very end of the bookshelves, a lone candle fluttered, and it seemed impossibly far away. Linden whistled as he went, and I followed more cautiously. The Department of Mysteries was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the strangest place I had ever visited, and that's saying something, since I had spent nearly six years at Hogwarts.
Linden gestured vaguely at a chair in front of what I assumed was his desk, and I sat down. He sat down behind the desk and began moving some parchment and books around, so that he could see his desktop. It was without a doubt the most disorganised desktop I had ever seen, up to and including Lucas's own after the glass-shards started flying. I turned my attention elsewhere as he let books fly. The whole Department seemed empty, which surprised me. The Department of Mysteries, who was guarding some of the more dangerous items in the wizarding world, ought to have a better security system, or at least more employees. An empty Department just didn't make any sense.
"So, Vincent tells me you've been in the hospital wing quite often this week," Linden said, giving up on organising his desk. "Mind explaining why?"
"I really don't see a reason for that, but since Lucas dumped me here and disappeared, I guess I don't have a reason not to." I shrugged, "First time was because of a fist-fight with Weasley, which was fully justified. I broke his jaw, he broke my nose, gave me two black eyes and broke a couple of my ribs. Pomfrey healed them, and I was sent to Lucas for my detention. He told me what Weasley had said to worm his way out of detention, and I got angry. Then, all of a sudden, things started flying around. I blacked out, and ended up in the infirmary again."
"Blacked out you say?" Linden straightened his glasses, which had an unfortunate tendency to slip down the right side of his nose, "How interesting. Basil!"
The last shouted statement had no connection whatsoever to what we'd talked about, and I jumped. Linden had the same tendency as my sister, it seemed, to talk about many things at once, and never once touching the ground called sanity. Hearing hurried footfalls from the bookshelves behind me, I spun around in my seat and looked into the shadows. A man, about a head shorter than I was, came running out of the library, carrying a stack of books. He stumbled over some books on the floor, and the books he was carrying flew all over Linden and me. He straightened up immediately, and looked apologetic.
"S-sorry, d-didn't mean t-to t-t-trip!" He stammered nervously. "What did you want? The coffee-machine'th gone mithing again, by the way."
"Stop lisping Basil." Linden said tiredly, "And the stammering is rather annoying too. What is it with you and speech impediments anyway? No, never mind, we have more important things to attend to. This here is Blaise Zabini. He blacked out two days ago, for no apparent reason. Have you seen my Algernon Bagshot book around here lately?"
"Anja was reading it earlier," Basil shrugged, "She's on her cigarette break right now. Do you want me to get her?"
When not stammering or lisping, Basil spoke with a Scottish accent. Apparently, his speech impediments were imagined, because he spoke without the slightest hitch in his voice. Racing off again through the bookshelves, shouting for this mysterious Anja, he stumbled again, but didn't fall luckily. Once again, I cursed Lucas's existence and his decision to leave me with these nutcases. Basil especially; Linden was just absent-minded and not prone to explain things properly. Basil had made up speech impediments, or so it appeared, and a trouble with keeping his balance. One could only imagine that Anja was just as bad.
"Now, as soon as Anja hands me my book, I'm sure we can solve this," Linden tried to be comforting, but stopped smiling as he caught the look on my face. "Oh dear, we haven't gotten off to a very good start, have we? You will have to excuse our disorganisation; the lack of hands to organise us and the severe cut in budget the Minister has forced upon us has started to show. We're short-handed as it is, and it's not getting any better. Hopefully, we will be able to help you anyway."
"Thanks," I mumbled, "So that's why the place is so empty."
"Yes. Unfortunately, we have been forced to let many people go. Too many people. We can hardly manage as it is; horrible that we would have to Obliviate so many people just because the Ministry doesn't see fit to give us a large enough budget to pay the wages." Linden didn't look happy.
"Obliviate?" That was news to me.
"Of course; this is the most secret place in the known world; anyone who works here has to be Obliviated when they retire or are forced to leave their position," Linden blinked, surprised I didn't know, "It's only common sense."
It was, really. Having several people running around with knowledge of what was going on inside the Department of Mysteries was just crazy. Not to mention dangerous. Obliviating people made sense, but Obliviating people couldn't be a nice thing to do every other day. Obliviation was a sort of mind-rape, forcibly removing and replacing memories, and even though I'd never attempted the spell myself, I could imagine that it wasn't very comfortable to do it. What really got me though, was the budget cutbacks that Fudge had forced on the Department. Those didn't make any sense at all. I opened my mouth to ask further, but was interrupted by Basil returning with a blonde woman in a tow.
"What did you want, Linden?" She asked. "I don't like cutting my cigarette break short. You know that."
"I merely wanted to know if you'd seen my book, the one by Bagshot, on mental diseases and memory loss." Linden said mildly, smiling a bit.
"It's right in front of you," Anja rolled her eyes, "You daft old bat. Who's this thin streak of misery?"
"Ah. This is Blaise Zabini, he's here because of something which happened two days ago. Thank you." Linden said, picking up a heavy book in front of him and leafing through it.
"Zabini? The fire-accident?" Anja asked, "What's he doing here? He'd want to go to the Department of Magical Law, to settle all legal issues."
"He blacked out for no reason, and Vincent took him here," Linden replied, nose-deep in the book.
"Oh, Vincent brought him here. That makes it alright, doesn't it?" Anja wondered, sounding incredibly sarcastic. "As if we don't have a lot on our hands already!"
"Well, I'm sorry, I just blacked out and things started flying around and I wound up in the hospital wing for the second time in twenty-four hours, don't let me bother you." I snapped, annoyed with her attitude. It wasn't as it was my fault that I was there. "And for your information, I'm not too fond of Lucas either; he deserves to be beheaded for dragging me off to London and dumping me with you for no reason at all, you know."
Silence descended for a few moments after my outburst. Linden peered over the edge of his book, Basil, who had been dusting off the bookshelves, halted in his movements and stared at me. Anja herself, still with a cigarette in her hand, smoking, looked at me in surprise. I probably shouldn't have snapped at her like that, but it was too late to take it back. I was tired of being kept in the dark, angry at both her and Lucas, and my head was still feeling fussy after I'd passed out. And no one would explain anything to me. It drove me mad. Suddenly, Anja started grinning.
"Well, well, well; the serpent has teeth." She chuckled, "I didn't mean no harm, Zabini. It's the stress of just us three managing the Department getting to me."
"Just the three of you? That's monstrous! No one can work like that!" I exclaimed, surprised. I would have talked further, but Linden slammed the book down on the desk again, grinning widely and frightening the life out of me.
"There it is! Now, Mr Zabini if you would just sit quietly, we'll have this solved in no time. Do you have any objections to me poking around in your memories? I will have to know exactly what happened to ascertain how to deal with it." He smiled.
"Go right ahead. The most exciting thing you'll find in there is cobwebs anyway." I shrugged and leaned back in my chair.
After a chuckle, Linden closed his eyes and concentrated. I closed my eyes as well, and stopped thinking as much as I could. Images of memories swirled past in my mind. My first time on a broom, only a feet off the ground at the age of four. Marise flinging snowballs at me, laughing. The Triwizard Tournament maze, and the red sparks. Potter bent over Diggory's body. Granger helping me downstairs. Millicent laughing. Draco and Pansy screaming at each other. "I'm frightfully sorry, it's rather hard to move around in here." Linden said suddenly. Potter and Granger laughing at something, Weasley lying on the floor, laughing as well. Snape, in one of the rare genuine smiles he wore. Lucas red eyes. Glass breaking. Wood cracking. My knees hitting the floor. "Finally. This is the right one. Let's replay it."
The memory swirled by, though slower than the actual event. Distantly, I could hear, or rather feel Linden speaking to himself or the others. After I'd run through the memory once, I was moved further back, to the Defence lessons. Images of Lucas flashed by, of me sitting in the library arguing with Granger. The duel with Potter. Memories of pain and exhaustion. Suddenly, it stopped. I opened my eyes again and stared at Linden.
By all rights, my head should be hurting. Somewhere, far off, it was hurting. But I didn't feel it as I should have. Something served like a damper between the ache and my concept of pain. Blinking a few times, I wondered why I wasn't lying on the floor, throwing up because of my headache. I should have been, but I wasn't.
"How interesting," Linden mumbled, "How very fascinating. I know what's wrong now."
"Well, what is it?" I snapped, without meaning to.
"It appears that during this duel you had, you exhausted yourself." Linden squinted at me, "Not just physically, but you drained your magical reserves. It was very, very fortunate that you did rest up after that, and not attempt to do any spells."
"Why?"
"It would have killed you." Linden sounded very serious all of a sudden. "Draining your reserves and then doing magic would have resulted in severe physical and mental shock, and ultimately your death. You, however, had sense enough to rest. But you didn't rest nearly enough. You went on to attend lessons and do spells and other magic too soon. You lived on scraping the bottom of your reserves the whole time, and it wore away on your mind and your powers. Finally, after both physical and magical wear on you, you snapped. That's why you blacked out."
"Why did I snap, as you call it? Why did the glass start flying? Why did the wood break?" I pressed, not satisfied with his explanation, though it did make many things clearer.
"How will I explain this?" Linden sighed, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. "All but the most unusual of individuals have a catch, a stopper in their head, that prevents them from doing magic any other way than with a wand. Without their wands, they're crippled, almost Muggles, but not quite. There is always the ability to do tiny things, almost unnoticeable, without a wand. Before you ever have a wand, you perform magic. That's what makes Hogwarts send letters for you. But as soon as you get a wand, it bonds with you. It becomes your wand, exclusively. No one else can use it, and you can't use any other wand. Because of the catch in your head. You with me so far?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now comes the difficult part. Excessive use of magic, on your part the exhausting duel and living on your reserves for months, scraping the bottom of the barrel so to speak, does things to you. It erodes that catch in your head, crumbles it. Makes your magic run wild. You lose your mental grip on magic." He smiled as if to reassure me of something, "In your case, even though long habit kept you going for those months, the force of the magical powers let loose when you lost that grip was enough to shatter glass and break wood. Never in my experience at least, have there been quite such violent reaction to losing control over one's mind."
"So you're basically telling me I've gone mad?" I asked.
"A bit more controlled than that, but yes, that is the gist of it." He nodded.
Silence. Anja had taken a vacant chair and was puffing away on her cigarette, despite Linden's obvious disapproval. Basil had, in lack of a chair, taken place on the floor, and was flipping through a book. Apparently, they had heard Linden speak of these things before and wasn't very impressed. Which was a bit odd, really. Hopefully, people didn't go insane on regular basis around here. I really hoped they didn't.
"I will speak to Vincent about your lessons, and possible visitation hours here." Linden continued. "And I will write a notification to Headmaster Dumbledore of course, to make it official. Ah, welcome back, Vincent."
"Got over your memory loss, did you?" Lucas said as he appeared like a ghost behind my chair.
"Yes. You were right about this one as well, Vincent." Linden nodded towards me, "He'll need training of course, but we can take care of that."
"Training?" I interrupted, "Can you just make it go away?"
"No. We can't. Once you lose the control, you can't get it back. You can establish a new one, but never get back the one you had before." Linden said. "I'm afraid you'll have to relearn everything you know. The only other way out if is to block your magic completely, and that would eventually drive you insane."
"As if I'm not mad enough already," I groaned, and buried my head in my hands.
It was now official; this day was rotten. I had taken a one-way trip to hell.
*****'
Ending Notes; poor little Blaise. Ah well, the end of the chapter might have been a little sudden, but I assure you, the next one will be up soon as possible.