Disclaimer: I missed a couple of disclaimers… and that's a crime, 'cause nobody knows I'm not JK Rowlings, even though I keep misspelling the name of the curses. XD
Author's note: Hi there faithful readers! Thank you again for the reviews, and yes I received all the angry death threats to do some action and moving on with this story! So here it goes!
Also, to reviewer WhyDoesAWebSiteNeedMyName
- Here comes Inky!
Let's begin…
Chapters 6 beyond door number three…
…
"So how long do we have?" Voldemort asked turning in his chair to face Snape.
The man's face was immediately serious.
"About 48 hours, give and take an hour or two. It really depends on one's magical power, and on the strength of one's mental shields."
"And since it's him?"
"About 36 hours…" Voldemort rolled his eyes, "You're betting for this to fail aren't you?"
"Yes! This is stupid. Regardless of how you look at it, there's no reason to keep that boy alive." Snape answered, crossing his arms in front of his chest and scowling.
"But regardless of how you look at it, it is my command, and if I find you tried in any way to sabotage it you shall feel my displeasure, both of you shall."
Lucius stepped in the conversation then, "My Lord, I suggest we postpone this interesting conversation about your plan's sense or lack of it, to a latter, more appropriate date".
"And, as always, you're the voice of reason Lucius." Voldemort said, internally smiling at Lucius.
He knew for a fact that if Severus was betting against his plan, then Lucius was betting in its favor, he could count on Lucius as an ally for this plan's success.
"Inky!" said Voldemort, and a domestic elf, dressed in a black little outfit of sorts, popped in the room.
"That which we had talked about has come to pass, as you can see," he gestured with a hand to Harry's sleeping form over the table. "You know what to do from now on. For now, please transport Mr. Potter to the quarters prepared for him." You may find it strange, the way Voldemort spoke to his domestic elf, but he had learned the value, or at least the utility of domestic elves during the past years, blind obedience did have its advantages at times, and they were damn useful.
"Yes master, will master's guests be wanting tea, while they wait?" the creature, Inky, said addressing the two other men in the room.
Malfoy just snorted, but Snape smile pleasantly at the elf and said: "yes Inky, but in the parlor if you please, and could you get some of those delicious scones you make, too?"
"Yes Sir, of course Sir. Inky will be happy to." The elf babbled with delight, before it popped out with Potter.
"I never get it, how you can manipulate my elf in doing whatever you want, supposedly she should obey only me."
"It's Magic", said Snape with a smirk.
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Harry Potter was sleep, or better yet in a state of coma in which he appeared to be asleep, and would remain so for the next 36 to 48 hours.
He was also no longer in the dungeons but in a beautiful bed made of dark wood, an unusual headboard with runes craved in it and all around him, curtains of red damask.
The room, his 'quarters' was large and magnificent in its grandeur. There wasn't that much luxury beside the bed and scarce furniture, what made it so magnificent was the comfort that appeared to radiate from everything. From the huge fireplace that occupied most of the left wall of the room, to the bed against the right wall, in the between there was the door to the room with several chests from each side, and on the wall opposite to the door, the first thing anyone saw as soon as they entered, there was a enormous window, in fact it was the junction of three large windows in one, and below the windows there was an adorable stuffed bench all around covered with pillows, in fact there were pillows pretty much every were, from various sizes, smaller ones on the divan and the bench by the window, also over the chest at the foot of the bed, and larger ones by the fireplace. They also varied in colors from dark damask, to bright ruby, to black and finally emerald green. On the left side of the window there was a huge worktable and its chair, on the right side of the window there were several bookshelves covered with books, all the furniture in the same dark wood with the runes carved designs from the bed.
The boy that 'slept' in the bed had no idea of the time that had been devoted to the creation of this room of course, but then again, few had. He also had no idea of the three men that were now around the bed discussing his future.
"Ok so explain to me again how I do this." Voldemort began.
Snape growled. "You asked for this potion and you don't know what it does?"
"No, I asked for a potion, and I know what it does, just not how to get it to do it…"
"Same thing! If you are not sure we should…"
A laugh rang clear trough the room, the two arguing men turned, in the direction of the sound. Lucius was laughing and holding his stomach, when he noticed the two men staring at him with angry scowls on their faces he covered his moth, inhaled deeply and said: "That's not going to work Severus, even if he is not sure, he will do it, because backing off now, would be too much like giving up. You should just give up and cooperate." For Snape's ears only he added, " For your own sake Sev, he's gnashing his teeth, soon enough he will be fuming and you know what it comes after that."
"Fine, whatever…" said Snape but he kept scowling.
"Besides, I too want to know what this mystery potion of your does. "
"Simple really," Severus began stepping into his teaching mode. "The potion which you ask of me my Lord is calledMemoriam Solutio, but you can't use it because it's not what you really asked for, you asked me for a potion to erase one's memory, but what you meant was to erase a series of select events, not all of his memory…"
"It doesn't exist, then how…?"started Voldemort.
"If you are going to interrupt I'm not going to tell you."
"Wanna bet on that?" said Voldemort with a smirk.
"Behave you two, continue Severus" Lucius said with a sight.
"Since the beginnings of time, we, wizards and potion masters of the world have created several memory erasing potions, always hitting with the same problem, that makes them unpractical: We cannot erase separate events, for that we use spells such as 'obliviate', the problem there being that with a little resistance from one's mind, the subject of the spell can regain his or her memories, because they weren't truly erased, just forgotten. As I said, this potions affects all of the memories because we cannot separate events inside one's head, which creates a problem, because the subject that ingests the potion forgets all their memories reverting back to the mental state of an infant with no recollection of how to speak, eat, walk, etc."
Voldemort seemed to want to say something but Severus ignored him and continued: "But since I'm not dense and realize that that was not what you were seeking my Lord, I remembered I had read about one particular potion that could work in this case, after some researched I found it, it is the potion which is in the base of all the research made in this field, but I also found that it is no longer used for its lack of practicability."
Once again Voldemort prepared himself to say something and once again Severus totally ignored him and continued: "its lack of practicability consists on the conditions necessary for its use, it must be taken of one's free will. Stupid I know, but understandable after you realize the reason why it was created; besides it makes for a good measure to assure it can't be forced on anyone. This potion is called Lysbon'sMemento vivere, there's quite the story about it; it was actually created by a woman, a queen from long ago, when wizards were still ruled by kings, and the several kingdoms fought one another. Legend tells she was faced with a hard choice, when she had to renegade her kingdom and family for the man she loved. She chose to follow this man and be queen by his side, but she could have no contact with her the loved ones she left behind. She left all she had and it was a painful separation, she was a brave woman, she was also a potions mistress or the equivalent to it at that time, so she created a potion to erase all her memories of what she left behind so she could live her new life."
"Very pretty, can we move on? What's the problem with it?" Voldemort finally managed to interrupt.
"The problem with it, as you so well put is that she wasn't stupid either and could easily see the magnitude of what she had created. She realized to importance of making sure it was not used in the wrong way, meaning against one's will, which is exactly as we are doing now!"
"But it's easy to trick you just have to convince the 'person' to take the potion of his own free will and that's it….right?" said Lucius raising an eyebrow.
"Wrong! Like it could be that simple… it has to be taken of one's own free will, simply because after taking it, one has 48 to remember the memories one seeks to forget, meaning, unless we can get the 'person' to actually think of those particular memories and mark them in its head, then the potion won't do a thing."
"Smart girl…" said Lucius with a grin.
"Smart girl, right, how do we trick it?" said Voldemort
"Easy, well easy for you my lord, we will take advantage of the connection you share with Potter, you will get into his head and once there, select the memories you wish to erase, and mark them, I warn you though, you can't erase separate events, you must pick a place and erase everything from before that point or from that point on, no skipping about in his head, memory has an order, if you disrupt it, it may crumble and drive him insane."
"Yes, yes we are all aware of the risks…" said Voldemort
"Well, not all…" said Lucius indicating the youth in the bed with his head.
The other two men just glared at him.
"What just pointing the obvious!"
"Yes, we noticed that and thank you for that wonderful reminder Lucius, can we continue now, how do I mark the memories?"
And Severus proceeded to explain him exactly how.
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Inside Harry Potter head was dark. Like really dark, and Severus had told him that he needed to find a door, and how the hell was he supposed to do that if he couldn't see a palm in front of his face? If only he could get some light…
And a torch appeared in the air at his right side
Then another one on the left side
And again another one on the right
And on the left
And right again, another torch
And so on…
An entire tunnel of torches was now in front of him, and stretched for as far as he could see…
He took the first step down the passageway…
This was going to be tough….
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A/N: Yes, once again EVIL! Very much so… tell me how much please! And I will reward you all with a really fast update!
For those interested in the name of the potions and its creation:
Memoriam Solutio: Memoriam is memory in Latin. Solutio is the Latin equivalent of 'solution' in the sense of the act of dissolving something.
Lysbon's Memento vivere: Lysbon is a loose adaptation of Lisbon, my hometown in Portugal.
Memento vivere - A reminder of life (literally remember that you have to live)