CHAPTER TWO
I sat in a booth in the corner of some pub in the southwest of Edinburgh, arms crossed in front of my chest as my leg kept bouncing up and down underneath the table, staring down at the pint of Tennet's with a frustrated expression fixed firmly on my face. The lager was a problem.
A big problem.
Not that there was anything wrong with the taste, not really, other than the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed it, which was another symptom of the big problem that the pint represented. And that was that Tennet's wasn't my favorite beer, with my previous life never even having heard of the brand and Lockhart preferring (far too) expensive wines.
The problem was that Tennet's was Jack Brown's favorite beer.
I had already suspected that Lockhart's life had influenced my own consciousness when I noticed the inflated pride and the lack of discomfort I felt at wearing lilac-colored clothing. However, I had thought that was because this was still Gilderoy's body. Foolishly, I had expected the life of Jack to simply enter my brain in the shape of a film reel, a new collection of data and information, nothing more.
The fact I was now sitting in his favorite hangout drinking his favorite beer led me to assume the contrary.
I didn't feel different. I had no sudden urge to go start a fight over something as silly as a football match or to pull a gun on passing old ladies in order to snatch their purse, which had fooled me into thinking that my decision making had been unaffected and was still my own, pure and uncontaminated by an outside source.
That illusion was shattered when a waitress came up to take my order and to my own surprise, I threw out the hooligan's favorite beer completely on reflex.
It was the same as Lockhart's body walking up Diagon Alley's to the Leaky Cauldron mostly on auto-pilot, the route seemingly ingrained into the body. Subconscious actions, reflexes, cravings… it seemed that those had bled through into myself without me even noticing it.
Which brough us back to the innocent (and sadly, no longer cold) pint of beer sitting in front of me and the big problem that it represented.
Because it was a symptom of Jack Brown's influence upon my (sub)conscious… but he wasn't the only person whose mind I had absorbed today.
Night had fallen by the time I had wandered into this pub, tired but content as I had had a spectacularly productive day. Using the memories of Mr. Brown's life, it had been a laughably easy matter to track down some of his buddies from his hooligan club. Catching them unawares had been only somewhat more difficult as I had known these strangers for years now and knew their daily routines by heart. Two of them, one a decently skilled mechanic and lockpick, the other a highly accomplished pick pocketer, I had managed to ambush at their own homes when I knew they would be alone.
Even an averagely skilled wizard could move nearly unopposed through the Muggle World if he applied himself and didn't escalate things far enough that other wizards were brought in to safeguard the precarious status quo. Not that most wizards really knew (or rather cared) about applying their incredible skills in order to move through the Muggle World unseen given how magic effectively shielded their entire society from the public's view regardless.
And failing that, there were always the Obliviators.
In fact, "Muggle baiting" as the exploitation of non-magicals was called, was such a low-priority crime for most wizards that much of those crimes eventually ended up under the purview of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, currently staffed by a grand total of two wizards: Arthur Weasley and his assistant.
Come to think of it, until that very same Arthur Weasley proposed the Muggle Protection Act in the same year that I would've begun teaching at Hogwarts, there wasn't even a formalized law punishing the wizards who cursed said Muggle Artefacts. Instead, the object itself just got confiscated, studied intensely by Arthur Weasley (on the sly) and then subsequently destroyed.
All without any consequences ever reaching the wizard who had created the Dark Object in the first place.
To any decent, upstanding citizen with a working moral compass, the situation was abhorrent.
Me? I couldn't be happier.
A grand total of three spells were all that I needed to approach a house unseen (under a Disillusionment Charm), enter without breaking anything (with a mere Alohamora) and then subdue my prey without any fuss or fight (a Stupefy when his back was turned). All in all less than five minutes of easy work, for a lifetime of hard-earned experience. After having done this twice, once for the pickpocket, once for the mechanic, I had a more intimate knowledge of every shady back alley and dirty crime dive than any scumbag currently alive in Edinburgh. Three lifetimes of having lived on the streets, even only as low-level thugs, meant that I currently had a whole web of contacts and connections sitting in my brain, along with a host of skills one might need to make it out alive and well in the underbelly of society.
Not to mention I now had three apartments filled with stuff that I could simply take for my own (until someone noticed the rightful owner's disappearance, that is) in addition to several hidey holes the three crooks had kept hidden throughout the surrounding neighborhoods, filled with modest stacks of cash in case of a rainy day.
I had actually ended up taking relatively little from the apartments though. Not only because I didn't have a handy bag or trunk with me Hermione-style, but because most of it was crap anyways. Nobody would be interested in purchasing an oven that had never been used (or cleaned) in near twenty years after a dramatic attempt at a casserole gone horribly wrong had covered the thing in grease and grime. While some of the various knick-knacks or furniture might have brought in a bit of money if I restored them with a quick Reparo and then sold them off again, honestly said amount of money was pitiful to what the crooks had managed to squirrel away. And that wasn't even considering the truly big money-making schemes I could set up in the Muggle world.
To a wizard, the Muggle world was their playground.
To anyone with future knowledge, the Muggle world was their oyster.
I happened to be both.
No, nothing that these low-level criminals had had in possession held any appeal to me other than the wads of cash they had lying around. I had thought about taking whatever drugs they had hidden away, but in the end decided against it as well. Three comatose bodies belonging to a single gang showing up in a single day was suspicious enough.
Some unknown suddenly selling drugs right afterwards? It didn't take a genius to put two and two together and even the violent hooligans of the Hibs Boys had managed to pass basic calculus before dropping out of the education system.
Too much heat for too little gain, so I had simply Vanished whatever drugs I found, took the weapons they had lying around (which amounted to two old rifles from their respective granddads and a shit ton of knives) which I applied a simple Shrinking Charm to before slipping them in my coat pocket and made off with whatever cash I could get my hands on.
I had considered going after more Hibs Boys, or perhaps unaffiliated criminals that my victims had known about, or even just baiting some random shmuck on the street like I had done with Jack Brown, but in the end I had decided against it after visiting one of the more popular hangouts of the hooligan club.
It had been a matter of logistics in the end. I had lucked out with Jack Brown that the alley he dragged me into had been truly deserted (as it was almost all days, I now 'remembered', hence why he'd chosen it), but the fact of the matter was that my spell, no matter how ridiculously advantageous it was, posed a real threat to me in open spaces. During the absorption process, I would be rendered completely helpless for around ten minutes, which hadn't been a problem when I had tracked down my prey and consumed them behind closed doors.
Out in the open though, all it took was the sound of a body hitting the floor or someone getting suspicious about my victim's absence and my kidneys could expect a surprise visit from a stiletto at any moment as they snuck up behind me.
So, figuring I had a decent enough haul for my first day as a knock-off Mind Flayer and with night steadily falling, I had made my way towards the nearest pub in order to decompress and review the new 'brains' I had essentially shoved into mine, adding three lifetimes to my own.
Unfortunately, I considered as I began downing my beer in frustration, that also meant three lifetimes worth of having lived a hard-knock life, and having seen (quite literally) firsthand all the hardships and traumas that brought with it. From angry parents with loose hands and too many bottles to imposing gangleaders demanding the last of your humanity and decency. I knew how these men had been shaped by circumstance and surroundings, knew how people could fall into a life of crime and never manage to crawl their way out again.
I had seen it all. Lived through it all.
And, in the case of the three unfortunates that had caught my eye, thrived on it to some extent.
How would that affect me, now that I was aware of the bleedthrough? For that matter, what would happen if I absorbed the mind of someone who hadn't been able to adapt, who was haunted by fears and trauma? Would I be debilitated by their weaknesses and triggers as well?
… What would happen if I tried to 'eat' the mind of another wizard? Or worse, a Legilimens or Occlumens. In the case of the latter, would my (very much modified and therefore highly dangerous) spell simply bounce off? In the case of the former, would I invite some kind of parasite into my brain, allowing it to consume me from within?
"Too many unknowns." I mutter to myself under my breath.
I glance out at the regular crowd shuffling in as the pub begins to fill up. Total strangers, yet I see so many faces I recognize. Little snippets and insights into their lives from three different perspectives fill my mind and with each person I study, I cannot help but wonder what their life has truly been like, from their own point of view. What kind of traumas and scars do they keep hidden from the world?
A single spell (and ten minutes of a blasting headache) and I would know.
Despite the troubling implications I had stumbled upon tonight, I couldn't help but be tempted nonetheless. That rush of memories, of feelings, only to come back to yourself and find more there than there was before, to simply act in a way that normally took years of training and struggle… it was incredible. To grow without actually having to put the effort in… clearly came with its own price and disadvantages I now realized.
Slamming the now empty glass down on the table, my thirst suddenly gone and my mood soured, I grunt in frustration. I rise from my seat and make my way towards the door, the crowd of steadily drunker and drunker Muggles seemingly parting in front of me without any effort at all, their eyes simply gliding right past me as if I weren't even there.
This was thanks to several Notice-Me-Not Charms applied to my clothing. It was the same spell that made Muggles unable to see the Leaky Cauldron and wasn't really something that was supposed to be 'anchored' in clothing. It was meant as more of a static security feature for places that wizards didn't want Muggles stumbled into, but honestly, I was spectacularly unimpressed with what Wizarding Britain felt I was supposed to do with my magic.
And so onto my clothes it went, from my coat to my vest to my pants and it had worked like a charm (heh!) as made evident when I wasn't stopped from stepping out onto the street despite not having paid my tab.
The only evidence to my presence in the pub this night would likely be a serving girl later tonight wondering why there was an empty glass on one of the tables where nobody had sat, before dismissing the wandering thought.
Like I said, the Muggle World is any decent wizard's playground. As I pulled my coat closer to myself, I began walking back towards the Lockhart residence, a different destination in mind.
It would seem I had a lot of studying in my future if I wanted to keep any prospective stolen memories from interfering with my own, and for that I had to go somewhere else entirely.
It was time to return to Diagon Alley.
Fun Fact: J.K. Rowling invented Quidditch after storming out of her house following a massive fight with her boyfriend. Make of that what you will.
AN: So this is a lot shorter than I usually write, but it felt like a nice contained little bit that I could cut off here. I'm going to be quite busy with writing my Master's Thesis in the upcoming months, so I'm hoping that by putting out smaller chapters I can keep more consistent updates coming out more often. Much of this chapter was (admittedly) written in response to some of the more common questions and complaints/warnings I got from the previous chapter. I had thought of (most of) those when I wrote the first chapter, I simply wanted to keep that stuff for later and not have everything explained in the very first chapter. I intend to keep that up for now, revealing stuff as Bakkuhart himself discovers them so that I'm not giving the game away from the start.
Also, about the money-making schemes that Bakkuhart mentions, anyone got any thoughts? I got some suggestions already, one of which involved restoring artwork which I really liked, but I could always use more 😊