Desiring Other Times
Chapter 6 - Mind
Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter I would have a gun with which I shot everyone else who said they owned Harry Potter. But I don't.
Two chapter Double Release - two now, two later this week. I'm on exams, but I have a little time in the morning to load up the chapters. Also, I have holidays soon, and rather than that meaning I have time to update, I have less because the net at home just got cancelled (we're looking for another provider now), and my parents are evil.
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"The dual arts of Occlumency and Legilimency are mastered only by those with true talent with magic, in particular, mind magics. For any generation of magical children in the world, about five out of every thousand have the natural ability to learn these arts to any degree of success, however limited. True mastery is even rarer – sometimes, a whole generation is born, lives and dies without a single one of them having learnt all there is to know about Occlumency and Legilimency.
If there comes a time when the world is cursed with an inability to have at least one master at a time, then this book is for when someone is born with the ability to learn the arts detailed within these pages. Should there ever be no masters of Occlumency and Legilimency in the world, then you need go no farther than this tome."
Mind Magics: Occlumency and Legilimency, by Merlin, updated by others.
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"Are you ready, boys?" I glanced at Jeremy, who had only just managed to get his breath back. Despite his obvious exhaustion, he nodded. Resigned, I nodded as well.
"Very well." uttered Dumbledore. He and Snape levelled their wands at Jeremy and I (Dumbledore at Jeremy, Snape at me), then chanted together "Legilimens!"
Almost instantly, my eyes stopped seeing Dumbledore's office, but in that split second between being in the physical world and crossing over to the mental world, I cried "Protego!" Snape didn't even get a chance to get into my mind.
"Very good, Mr Potter." He congratulated, and then turned to regard Jeremy with a sneer. "It seems your brother does not seem to be having the same… fortune as you. Not that it matters – it isn't he who is going into danger." We'd only just started doing the practical part of the lessons, but I was already well on the way to mastering Occlumency. Learning when you had mentors sure beat learning by yourself.
A week ago, I had turned up at Dumbledore's office to be greeted by the presence of my parents, Jeremy, Dumbledore and Snape. The 'adults' had explained that they were members (Dumbledore was leader, actually) of a group called The Order of the Phoenix, a group dedicated to the destruction of evil. Snape had been revealed to be a spy for the Order of the Phoenix, a Death Eater that had been 'turned'. He in turn had disclosed that he had wanted Draco and me to become friends so that if – when – Voldemort returned, my influence may have swayed Draco to 'our' side.
Suddenly, Dumbledore stumbled backwards, his arms windmilling a little and his wand was no longer pointed at Jeremy. Opening his eyes, Jeremy smiled at my blearily. "I did it! I pushed him out!"
"Not before he'd been inside your mind for several minutes, idiot boy!" chastised Snape, and the smile dropped off Jeremy's face to be replaced with anger.
"Now, now. Let's not fight, gentlemen." Jeremy fought his way to his feet again. "Shall we try again after a little break?" Jeremy nodded. It was almost nine o'clock, and he was achingly tired.
"Here." I pulled out an unopened package of Honeydukes Chocolate – last Hogsmeade outing the Ravenclaw Prefects had asked everyone if they wanted to order some lollies from Honeydukes, and I had put in for five galleons worth of sweets.
"Thanks," said Jeremy, and he bit into the chocolate with much relish. Pausing for a moment, he asked me "Aren't you going to have any?"
I shook my head. "Nah – I've already had some." Snape looked at me curiously, wondering why I had lied. Dumbledore and Jeremy didn't know any better, however, as they assumed I had had the chocolate when they had both been in the world of the mind.
"Ok." Two minutes later, he had finished two of the rows of chocolate. Stuffing the rest into a pocket, he turned to Dumbledore. "I'm ready to try again."
Dumbledore nodded. Snape, however, spoke up. "This time, don't stop me before I get into your mind – an enemy won't wait until you know he's going to use Legilimency on you." I nodded.
"Legilimens!" I waited for Snape to try and pierce the first few flimsy fortifications I had made, and when he finally reached the first circle (my original design had actually been quite good – I just needed to add some conventional means of defence), I gathered a little magic and pushed against the ball of magic that was his mental projection. In the real world, Snape staggered backwards several steps before regaining his balance.
He smiled. "Excellent work, Mr Potter. You didn't even use a spell!"
"Hyaaaaaargh!" screamed Jeremy, and Dumbledore was flung backwards a few feet. Snape's eyes widened, as did mine. Jeremy had certainly put a lot of magic into that blow, and if he was capable of doing that each and every time-
Snape, Dumbledore and I were sorely disappointed when Jeremy fainted dead on the floor. "Pity," said Dumbledore. "But I guess it still shows that Jeremy Potter is an amazingly strong wizard." He turned to regard Snape and I. "Severus, would you like to continue on with Harry or…?" Dumbledore gestured at Jeremy.
It wasn't really a question, it was more a request for Snape to take Jeremy to the Hospital Wing, leaving Dumbledore to test me. "I'll take him to the Hospital Wing, Albus." murmured Severus softly. Dumbledore smiled, then turned to me.
"Ready?" I nodded.
"Legilimens!" Dumbledore pierced through the outer defences like an arrowhead through buffalo hide – not extremely quickly and easily but doing it nonetheless.
I had already begun to gather magic, and I coiled it about Dumbledore's projection tightly then flung him out like a catapult. My eyes reverted back to viewing the real world, and I saw that Dumbledore had been flung across the room like a doll. Fortunately, he had collided with his very cushiony chair.
"Professor!" I hurried to his side. "I'm sorry, I must have used too much magic…" I trailed off as he gazed at me. To many, they would have thought he was proud of me, like a grandfather that has just taught his grandson how to ride a bike. But I knew that behind that image was a calculating mind that was wondering why on earth I was so much stronger than Jeremy, so much more talented.
So much more intelligent.
"That was excellent work, Harry. I'm sure if Lucius were to even try to read your mind you would be able to throw him out easily." He reassured me, and I grinned.
"Thanks, Professor." I paused. "I won't let you down, I promise!"
Dumbledore smiled in a grandfather-like manner. "I'm sure you won't, Harry." He looked at the clock. "Well, how about we have an early night tonight, Harry?"
I shrugged, then nodded. "Sure. I'll go check if Jeremy's alright first, though."
"Of course. Perhaps I should go with you."
We walked to the Hospital Wing and were promptly greeted by Madam Pomphrey's clucking antics. "Magic exhaustion – what have you been doing, Albus? Sitting him in front of a Dementor?" Madam Pomphrey almost immediately regretted those words when Dumbledore put on a thoughtful look, as if seriously considering her idea.
"Surely you wouldn't…!"
"Well, it would certainly be an interesting way to teach them Expecto Patronum." replied Dumbledore rather matter-of-factly.
In one of the boxes of Flitwick's knowledge I had already unpacked, I had found the Patronus spell and had subsequently integrated that knowledge into my mind. A little practice had revealed that my Patronus had no form – normally, a Patronus took on the form of whatever the creator associated most closely with protection. Magic was my protector but magic had no form, and thus no limits. Consequently, my Patronus turned out to be one of (if not the) most powerful Patroni in all of history.
"Albus! They're only eleven years old!"
Dumbledore chuckled, but this seemed to infuriate Pomphrey even more. "This isn't a laughing matter, Albus! I won't have you putting a student into a situation that's too much for them!"
For the first time, I wondered if they thought my going to Malfoy Manor was far too much for the meagre powers they assumed I possessed. Dumbledore chose not to mention my reason for learning Occlumency, and was saved a tongue-lashing by Pomphrey.
Jeremy lay in one of the beds, so pale, so small. Several flasks of potion sat on the bedside table, some full, some not.
"He's going to be ok, isn't he?" I asked Pomphrey, and she smiled somewhat condescendingly and reassuringly at me.
"He's going to be fine – no thanks to your Headmaster over here, though." She mock glared at Dumbledore, who smiled benignly at her.
I sat next to Jeremy for a few minutes. "I have to go now – curfew's soon." With that, I left the Hospital Wing and returned to Ravenclaw Tower.
Along the way, I noticed that in the classroom next to where I was, something was radiating so much magical energy that I could feel my teeth vibrating with it. Stepping cautiously into the room (both wands out but hidden by the wide sleeves of my robes), I saw that the only remarkable thing in the room was a gold-framed mirror that reached up to the ceiling and stood on two clawed feet. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. Staring at it, part of me recalled that I still hadn't had a look at my memory of the door to Dumbledore's office. The rest of my mind tried to figure out what the inscription meant – then it clicked.
"I show you not your face but your heart's desire." I read from the mirror, and inwardly I wondered if I really wanted to know what I truly wanted. Paranoia caused me to cast Finite Incantatem on myself in an effort to dispel whatever Compulsion Charm the mirror had laid upon me, but to no avail. I sighed, and stepped before the mirror.
There in the mirror, was me before a mirror that looked exactly like the one I was currently standing in front. And within that mirror was an image of me before another mirror, and so on and so forth. And then the mirror in the mirror I was looking at cracked, then shattered into pieces.
"What the…?" Fortunately, the real mirror wasn't damaged at all. "Is that all I want?" I asked myself, then realized that my Occlumency shields might be preventing the mirror from looking into my 'heart'.
"Well," I spoke aloud to the mirror. "I'm not going to deactivate my wards just to be told something I already know."
"Is that so?" Said a voice from behind me.
My heart started thumping so loudly that I could feel my eardrums pulsating. Breathing in and out in a steady pattern, I inconspicuously slipped my wands back into their holsters.
"What can I do for you, Professor?" I asked, voice calmer than I felt.
I turned around. Quirrell stood there, wand pointed right at my heart. The door was shut behind him. Locked, probably.
"You can start by moving away from the mirror." I did so, but he snapped his fingers and ropes sprang out of nowhere to bind me. "Accio wand!" He cried, and my primary wand soared out of its holster and into his hands. It was exactly for situations like these that I had deactivated the Anti-Summoning charm on that holster, but kept it on for the second wand.
Quirrell paused, thinking. "Accio weapons!" He cried, but nothing flew out – I wasn't carrying any sort of blades (which he was probably visualizing, and not even bothering with other sorts of weapons). Sure in the knowledge that I was weaponless, he pocketed my wand and turned to look at the mirror.
"Such an interesting mirror… hiding such an amazing secret – fitting really, that a mirror that shows your desires hides the very thing needed to help you achieve them." murmured Quirrell, but what he was talking about, I had absolutely… no… idea?
Hang on. I rummaged through the Flitwick Files (as I had dubbed them) and just as Quirrell had begun tapping at the mirror with his wand, I found what I was looking for.
"The Holy Grail." I murmured softly, and Quirrell looked at me sharply.
"Yes, that's right. The Holy Grail – although how you managed to find out that little tidbit of knowledge… Well! That only proves that you're a meddling fool that doesn't know where not to stick his nose into… Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that – for all I knew, you lot had seen me going to look at what was guarding the Grail…"
"The third floor right hand corridor? But why… what on earth?" I was really confused right about then.
"Why isn't the Grail itself there? Haven't you heard of misinformation, Mr. Potter? It almost worked – I had no idea the Mirror, it being the final clue to where the Grail is, was hidden elsewhere in the school, but dear, dear me…" Quirrell was becoming agitated as time passed, and he was still unable to retrieve the Grail. To distract himself, he spoke detachedly to me.
"Yes, Halloween. You and your sidekick brother and foolish friends charging in to save a pathetic mudblood from a pathetic troll."
"The troll… you let it in, didn't you?"
"Why yes… I have a special gift with trolls – I find them quite useful, really. A little bit stupid but how is that any different to the typical wizard?"
While he was a talking, I continued to rifle through what Flitwick had known about the Grail, the protections and Quirrell.
"I see the Grail… I'm presenting it to my master… but where is it!" He demanded in a hissing whisper. "I don't understand… this is supposed to be the final clue! Is the Grail inside the mirror? Should I break it?"
"Who are you working for?"
Quirrell turned suddenly, quite startled. "What, you mean you still don't know?"
I looked at him. "Lord Voldemort, right?"
Quirrell smirked. "Of course – there is no greater master to serve under. And when I have the Grail, he will punish you for dirtying his name with your filthy half-blood tongue."
I narrowed my eyes. "What, is here with you?"
Quirrell paled, shuddered. "He… he is always with me." He scowled, then turned to regard the mirror once more.
"What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!" He cried, and what happened next scared me so much I thought my heart was going to stop from the shock.
A cold, high voice, issued from somewhere near where Quirrell was standing. I had heard that voice before – I heard it every time I dreamed of that night that changed the Wizarding World.
"Use the boy… use the boy…" it whispered, and I realized it was slightly muffled. Quirrell's back. Muffled. The voice was coming from beneath his turban!
Quirrell strode to me, dispelled the ropes, grabbed a handful of my robes and hauled me upwards. He dragged me before the mirror and forcefully turned my head to face the mirror.
I gazed into the mirror, and I realized that for the first time in my life, I really wanted to play the hero. I wanted to stop Quirrell and Voldemort getting their hands on the Grail. For someone as young as I, eternal life and the ability to transmute anything into anything merely by flinging water that had been in the grail at it… okay, so maybe the transmutation thing was cool, but eternal life seemed so pointless. So boring.
In the mirror stood myself, this time facing me. The me in the mirror stood next to a carved stone pillar, and on top was a wooden cup that had been worn smooth by the ages, with intricate carvings trailing across it. Mirror me pulled out his wand (coincidentally the customized one), pointed it at the Grail and shrunk it. He then put the tiny Grail into his left robe pocket.
At the same time, a light weight slipped into my right robe pocket.
"…do you see? Well? Answer me, Potter!" Quirrell was shaking me, and seemed to have been demanding what I'd seen for quite some time.
Wandlessly, I caused the cloth at the bottom of my pocket to wrap tightly around the Grail as if it had been sown into my clothes, which resulted in my right pocket being a little more shallow than the left. I blinked then looked at Quirrell right in the eye. "I saw the Mirror breaking. It was what I saw earlier, when you walked in on me."
Quirrell cursed and turned to look at the mirror again. But then the cold voice – Voldemort's voice – spoke again. "He lies… He lies…"
Turning back to me again, Quirrell flung his hand out and I was thrown and pinned against the wall. "Potter! Tell me the truth! What did you see!" Spittle flew from his mouth, and I grimaced.
"Let me… speak to him. Face… face to face…" said Voldemort. His voice was still muffled.
"Master, are you sure…?"
"Quentin." With that one word, Quirrell acquiesced.
Some morbid, perverse part of me was so curious to see what would happen, what Voldemort would look like, that I was rooted to the spot. Quirrell reached up to his turban, untucked the end of it and began unwinding the thick purple fabric.
"You know people who wear purple are sexually confused?" I blurted out, and Quirrell glared at me. The last part of the turban came undone, and Quirrell slowly rotated on the spot until I was presented with the back of his head.
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Author's Notes:- Don't hate me for stopping it there!
1. Time Frame – it's December, not yet Christmas so Jeremy hasn't gotten James' Invisibility Cloak yet. Or even one of his own.
2. Hogsmeade – only third years and above can go on the excursions, but wouldn't it be nice if the Prefects got orders for the kids?
3. Patronus – Harry doesn't associate his parents with protection in this AU, but rather associates magic with protection.
4. The First View of the Mirror – the mirror could only view into the first circle, and he didn't want to know what his heart's desire was so it showed him the mirror breaking.
5. Accio – To summon something, you have to visualise it. While wands are not all the same, Quirrell has viewed Harry's wand before in class.
6. Holy Grail vs. Philosopher's Stone – The story needed a change, to make it more AU. Note that Biblical sources say it can only furnish food for those without sin, and it could blind the impure of heart and strike mute the irreverent who came into its presence. Other stories say the Grail can give the drinker eternal life. I've taken the eternal life and combined it with transmutation properties (Christ turned water into wine, so surely something that he both drank from and held his blood would have something of that power!). Why not the Biblical powers? Because Voldemort and Quirrell wouldn't bother to find it.
7. The pocket thing – imagine a nut. Then imagine two squares of cloth. Then imagine you sewed the two pieces of cloth so that it sealed the nut inside. That's the Grail wrapped about by the cloth that made up the bottom of his pocket, and now he has a shallower pocket.
8. Purple – not exactly sure where I heard this or the source of this connotation, but it may have something to do with the novel 'The Colour Purple". And 'queens' – colour of British royalty is purple.
The timeline has is being moved forward at a much faster pace now: it's not even Christmas, yet Harry is facing off against Lord Voldemort! Not to mention he's learning Occlumency – almost five years earlier than in canon (although people debate whether he learned anything in fifth year).