Healer

by Gezenshaft

Fallen into the world of GP, Granger's brother.

========== Chapter 1 ==========

How will the world be perceived by the soul freed from the flesh? What form will it take, will the soul see and hear in the usual sense? And is there a soul at all?

Such questions sometimes popped up in my mind, but I never looked for an answer. However, man assumes and God disposes, as they say, and therefore I got the answers to these questions quite unexpectedly, and, as it should be according to the law of the genre, at the most inopportune moment. The moment of success of my career, personal growth and well-being. Wisely said, but so it is - when everything is good in life, fate may well throw a fit, and in the worst case, you die. And I died.

Death is scary not only because of the uncertainty that awaits you, but also because of the process. A stupid coincidence, a few deep cuts, and I'm already dying ridiculously, bleeding to death, and the sudden realization, adrenaline, and rapid heartbeat only speed up the process. The slowly advancing darkness dissolves the resentment of the circumstances. When even thoughts disappeared in that darkness and it seemed as if there was nothing left around as something seemed to explode.

It's difficult, extremely difficult to describe in words. It was as if you had always been blind, deaf, unable to smell, and even tactile sensations were inaccessible. You could call it sensory shock, and yet you were still blind and deaf in the usual sense. It was as if there was some kind of awareness of the space around you, but the space was strange and incomprehensible. There was no top, no bottom, no other directions, and the space itself was far from three-dimensional - something more, all-encompassing.

Fear shackled the mind - in this space you lose yourself. Not so much that you forget yourself and become different, no. You feel, you feel with every fiber of your consciousness, how these very particles detach from you and fly away, blending with the space around you. You know that you have lost something, but you don't know what it is. It is like looking at a body slowly crumbling into ashes, you know that it is crumbling, you know that you have just lost something, but for a brief moment this loss seems normal to you, or rather, as if it had happened. At the same time you realize that it is wrong, and the remnants of logic hint that sooner or later there will be nothing left.

I don't know how long I was here, but by some intangible moment fear for myself turned into certainty - something must change. Gathering the rest of my will into a fist, I concentrated and started trying to hold on to the pieces of myself, not letting them fly away. It didn't work right away, and by this point I'd lost quite a bit. Probably a lot, it's hard to judge the severity of a loss you don't know the value of.

Once I was sure that the pieces were no longer flying away from me, I decided to try to get back what I had lost, even though I didn't know what I had lost. I just tried to attract something to me at random and fix this "something". However, contrary to my expectations, the attracted particles either did not want to cling, or clung, but immediately came off again, taking with them particles of me. This situation struck some strings of my soul, and, determined to deal with this bad world, disregarding my own safety, I took up with renewed vigor my attempts to absorb "something" from the surrounding space.

There is no pain or fatigue here. It is hard for me to judge the success of my attempts, although in time the various attracted particles stopped flying away from me and quite reliably held on. However, there was another question - how many of them do I need for integrity? And the integrity of whom? Seriously! Who is "I"? Are my particles attracted? Each particle carries a grain of information - an association, a tiny memory, a once-considered opinion or idea, a thought, and so on. They are all so different, and logic tells us that they most likely contradict each other. Some sense of impropriety does not allow to correlate associative rows of consciousness of a knight in iron armor that lived in a small fortress, an engineer-geneticist, assigned to some "second fleet" of the Space Force, or, here, some mongrel dog. There were countless such shards, and all different, incomplete scraps, but I collected them diligently.

"Who's 'I'?" - an obvious question, but the meaning and importance of the answer was somewhere far, far away, the main thing was to accumulate the particles so as not to be scattered exactly, to be the most complete. It seemed to me that even then, having just appeared here, I was not whole.

One day something changed. In a tiny part of my consciousness, I saw life. It was as if I were alive again, small, lying in a crib with a wooden fence, if only I knew what this construction was called. Sometimes people were bustling around, doing something, looking at me with a strange look. I felt it all in bits and pieces, in bits and pieces, at the edge of my consciousness. Yes, in bits and pieces, but it was life. An orderly linear chronology, and it's all happening right now - I couldn't look beyond that, like with the shards. But then why is "I" still here, in this inhospitable world that first tried to destroy, dissolve me into itself? I am not yet reassembled. Not all the shards. The assembled is not in order. Is that the reason? It needs to be reassembled...

There was a seemingly festive atmosphere in a rather wealthy cottage in Crawley, a town south of London. The Granger couple were celebrating the eleventh birthday of their second child, Hector. The first child had been Hermione, and the following July a boy, Hector, had been born. And everything would have been fine if it weren't for his strange mental abnormalities.

Hector had shown an absurd minimum of any activity since birth. As an infant, he never cried. Never. Even when he soiled his diapers or was hungry, he could remain silent and aloof, as if he were not even here. I had to spend a lot of time with him. Sometimes Hector returned to this mortal world as if with one eye, showing some activity and independence. But it was seldom and not for long. Emma and Robert were having a very hard time.

Later, when Hermione was already learning to walk, incoherently babbling something in her baby language, Hector, who should have learned to crawl, remained completely aloof from what was happening, still occasionally "returning" and a little more actively participating in his development.

At the age of three, the boy suddenly took off and walked. With no preparation, no nothing. And the purpose of his hike was a change of dislocation - from one corner of the nursery to another, where there was more sunshine.

It was about the same with absolutely everything that children usually learn. Hector would just start doing something, keeping a completely blank face, looking somewhere deep into space with empty eyes. It was scaring Emma and Robert. It scared little Hermione. It frightened the babysitter who had to be hired, because you had to work sometime.

As time went on, Hector gained a certain independence. Still detached from the world and the people around him, he was engaged in some obscure business of his own, contemplating, comprehending, or something else. At least, that's what everyone in the house thought, when the boy was stuck in the wall for a couple of hours. Some might have thought, "Didn't they go to the doctors?" Yes, they did, and often. Except no one could tell us anything. However, the encephalogram together with other diagnostic procedures showed extremely high simultaneous activity of all parts of the brain. They made assumptions, theories and so on, but no one could draw any conclusions.

For example, Hector could, if he was in the mood and had a pencil and paper at hand, create a picture of photographic quality in a couple of minutes. But a drawing of what? That was another question. Some forbidden, inconceivable to a man objects and forms, in which there was a logic absolutely inaccessible to understanding. And it was like that in everything. Once Hector had written three notebooks with small formulas, but even Robert's acquaintance, a math professor, had broken his brain trying to comprehend what he had written and had been hospitalized for a month.

On the other hand, Hector was quite independent, unlike children with autism and other disabilities. Yes, he couldn't perform complex sets of actions, as he quickly went into himself, but he performed immediate needs and operations as if he acted on reflexes according to a long-established scheme. And, as always, he looked somewhere in the distance, making everyone very much worried about himself. Worried, yes, but to the unaccustomed person, it was a scary picture.

Hermione, like her parents, had also had a lot of trouble with Hector. From the age of seven, when she finally realized that Hector would die without help, the girl began to actively help her parents in everything, so that they could pay more attention to her brother - she didn't want to do it herself. She helped around the house, did her own lessons, looking for information and ways to solve her childish but important problems. Deep in her heart she disliked Hector, even if a little, but he was the source of a phenomenal amount of problems and worries! And also parents because of this almost no time for the girl. Even though it wasn't really true, children saw everything in a different light.

Hermione also had a big secret. She could do incredible things, albeit mostly accidentally, uncontrollably. The girl hid her gift for various telekinesis and the like from her parents, because they had enough trouble.

And now, the fourth of July of the ninety-first year, no one was expecting anything unusual. Another modest holiday, quiet and peaceful. Hector together with everyone will eat cake, will receive gifts in the form of drawing sets, because for something more complicated he just does not have enough time from the "glimmers of consciousness". In general, he will get presents and go to his room, and the rest of the family will take a breather and congratulate each other on another hard year. Hermione is sure to talk about her successes at school and modestly frown at the question about her friends - no friends, not to them.

Everything was going like that, and Hermione was staring modestly at her knees, sitting at the table - the very same question was voiced. But there came the unexpected and not at all musical sound of the doorbell.

- I'll get it," Robert, a medium-sized, russet-haired man, the father of the family, got up from the table and headed for the door.

Emma, a short-cropped, beautiful brunette, set aside her cup of tea, listening to the conversation at the door. Hermione did the same. Her face was her mother's, but her hair was a mixture of both parents, a curly, willful and unruly mop of different shades of russet, from dark to very light.

A couple minutes later, Robert came back into the living room to the set table, followed by a tall, stately lady in a floor-length emerald gown and black robe. Her age was indeterminate, but she was not young - slight sparse wrinkles and gray hair gave her away as a lady much older than Emma, though if you didn't look closely, you couldn't give her more than forty.

The lady introduced herself as Professor of Transfiguration and Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall. With a deft movement of her wand, she convinced those present of the existence of magic, which pleased Hermione and surprised her parents. Anyway, she had come to deliver two invitations to study at Hogwarts. Hermione and Hector.

- Professor," Robert's face literally darkened. - There might be some problems with Hector.

- What is it? - The professor was surprised, sitting at the table with everyone else and sipping the offered tea. - Where is the young man, by the way?

- He is in his room, - answered Emma.

Everyone got up from the table and went to the second floor. Just before the door they stopped, and Emma spoke again:

- Are you familiar with autism?

- I have an idea," McGonagall nodded, shifting her stern gaze to Emma and Robert.

- A very similar situation, but not it," Robert nodded, and Emma opened the door and they all stepped inside.

A simple room of light colors. A plain bed neatly made as always. The chalk and plastic boards on the walls were scribbled with completely incomprehensible symbols, signs and diagrams, rarely interspersed with familiar numbers. From the far corner of the room, a closet stretched to the window, obviously for clothes, and next to it was a low table, where you sit on the floor - Hector sits on chairs only when necessary, for example, in the kitchen. Leaning back against the closet, a black-haired boy sat on the floor, his empty blue eyes staring off into the distance. McGonagall was even slightly surprised at how cute the child's face was. True, the face expressed no emotion and bore none of the traces characteristic of people with mental disorders - just a mask without emotion. And that caused subconscious anxiety and fear.

- Let me clarify, - after a moment's pause, the professor spoke. - Does Hector sometimes become more adequate?

- Rarely and not particularly perceptible.

- Is he like this since birth or after some incident?

- Since birth. We've run every conceivable test, visited various specialists, but the only thing we've found out is that his brain activity is abnormally high.

McGonagall pressed her lips together and adjusted her glasses with a finger.

- I'd suggest calling a healer from Mungo's.

Seeing the incomprehensive stares of the adults and the girl, McGonagall explained:

- St. Mungo's Hospital is a magical healing institution. Perhaps our healers can help, or at least determine a course of treatment.

Of those present, only Robert noticed the shadow of sadness on the professor's face. The professor had obviously encountered something similar, but it was not worth getting involved.

When McGonagall agreed to call a medic and realized that the Grangers couldn't handle it themselves, she conjured up a ghostly cat, whispered something to it, and it galloped away, disappearing into thin air. As the professor said, she had summoned a healer she knew, and a couple minutes later the doorbell rang. On the threshold stood a slightly overweight man with a slight streak of gray in his short dark hair. He was dressed in a plain dark robe and introduced himself as Healer Smethwick.

For about half an hour the healer circled around the still motionless Hector, waving his wand and saying something, his face clearly showing curiosity and enthusiasm. Robert clenched his fists indignantly, but Emma stroked his shoulder.

- Now you know how the parents of that boy you were hanging around at the examination felt, saying, "What an interesting case."

After a few minutes, Healer Smethwick put away his wand and walked over to the adults watching.

- What did you find out? - The professor asked.

- Strange and unusual, but not critical," the healer replied with a slight smile. - The boy has become more adequate over the years, hasn't he? I can see that he has. And he hasn't noticed any oddities, magical manifestations or the like?

- Neither had Hermione.

Of course, Hermione's mother couldn't help but notice some oddities that could so easily be attributed to superpowers. That's why McGonagall's appearance wasn't taken so keenly. But Emma, like Robert, was now wondering if and how their little girl would get out of it.

Smethwick glanced at an embarrassed blushing Hermione and smirked.

- Is there something we don't know? - Emma asked with a smile, but it was a smile that hinted at an obligatory educational conversation.

- Not that you don't know.

- That's not the point," the healer interrupted and looked at the boy's parents again. - Physically, he's perfectly healthy, although he's a little thin, but I think that's because he's not moving much. The problem is that his brain and magic are fully engaged in a much more important task. It's like he's restoring the integrity of his soul.

- Soul integrity? - McGonagall literally took the question off Hector's parents' tongue.

- 'Yes. You know, Minerva, we've been watching the Longbottoms for ten years now, trying to cure them. We've learned a lot, and we've made a lot of progress, but it's a shame it's not working. One of the theories of my colleagues was that such severe dementia was caused by damage and decay of the soul, and the resources of the body and magic, even with external support, are simply not enough to stop the process and recovery. In their case, the theory didn't hold true, but that's exactly what it is here.

- Wait, but is there a soul? Can it be destroyed? - Hermione asked, catching a pause in the conversation. Catching her parents' gaze, she blushed slightly and lowered her head. - I'm sorry...

- It's okay, it's okay. It's a good question. The properties of the soul are still debated, and there are many theories. Some say it's like some kind of endless pudding - cut and cut as much as you want. Others believe it's like an onion - many layers, but deep inside is an indivisible core. There are many theories, but the problem is that each of them has confirmation, but some are mutually exclusive, hence the inability to come to a consensus. But in general yes, the soul exists, it can be divided... The only thing that is common to all the theories is the connection of soul, body and mind, the mental triad. If you pull one, you change the other two. In Hector's case, all the resources of this triad are focused on restoring his soul. However, he is missing something very badly.

A dramatic pause, during which everyone was eagerly awaiting the continuation.

- Hector lacks magic. Magic as energy is a product of the interaction of the mental triad. Without any one thing, there will be no magic. Given the boy's state of mind, his magic is weak.

- It was enough to get him on the Hogwarts admission list. No outliers.

- So the boy's mind is very strong, as is his body, which partially compensates for the damage to his soul. The situation can be compared to building a sand castle. The hands are there, the will is there, the sand is there. But you cannot build a castle out of dry and shaky sand - you need water. That's where magic comes in as water. He can't get enough of it, that's why the process took so long.

- How is any of this possible? - Robert rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. Emma had long since thoughtfully propped herself up against the wall, and Hermione listened attentively, memorizing new and unprecedented knowledge.

- Are you familiar with the phenomenon of stillbirth?

After receiving confirming nods, Smethwick continued:

- In addition to abnormalities in the development of the fetus, in extremely rare cases the cause can be the soul. It can be rejected by the body, it can decompose and leave it, there are many variants, though the cases are single for centuries of history. It just so happens that something similar happened to Hector, but something stopped the decay, and now he is recovering.

- So what do we do?

- Put the boy in a more intense magical background, give him a course of strengthening and stimulating potions. But even in the current situation Hector will be able to cope on his own by the time he's fifteen, maybe a little later. He's past the critical stage. With our help, he should be able to recover within a year. Give or take.

- And where would we get that magical background? - Emma asked, looking away from the wall.

- 'Minerva,' Smethwick looked at the professor. - 'Talk to Albus.

- Do you want to house the boy in the hospital wing of Hogwarts?

- Yes. At Mungo's, we'd have to create an artificial background, and that costs a lot of money. And Poppy will provide even better care than ours. She's got two or four patients, we've got a whole hospital. The potions we need are simple, anyone can brew them, and the ingredients cost a couple of shekels.

And that was that. Professor McGonagall spent about half an hour telling the parents of the two young wizards various nuances of life in the magical world, talking about the peculiarities of studying at Hogwarts, about the subjects, among which were general education. Only after the professor answered the questions that parents of muggle-born wizards had been asking for years, she escorted Hermione to the school for shopping. Smethwick had long ago gone to the hospital and was discussing the diagnostic data with his colleagues to be two hundred percent sure of the correct diagnosis and method of treatment, and Hector was suddenly scribbling down a couple of sheets of paper with another jumble of symbols and multidimensional structures.

The next day, in the evening, a tall, gray-bearded old man in a purple robe with many runes and symbols paid a brief visit to the Granger couple's house. He introduced himself as Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts. The purpose of his visit was simple - to transport Hector to the castle itself. Normally, Hogwarts rules did not allow anyone outside of the staff to stay at the castle during summer vacation, but medical cases were always an exception.

Hector's transportation was fairly straightforward. The adults had wisely decided that the traditional method by train, fireplace, or other methods could be detrimental and were quite problematic. Because of this, Albus Dumbledore decided to use his phoenix, Fawkes. He is able to apparate with people so gently that it has no effect on the wizard and causes no discomfort. Absolutely safe and Hector can be taken directly to the hospital wing. Some personal items such as clothing, scrapbooks, notebooks, and a movable writing board will be delivered separately.

Time passed inexorably. The first of September had come, new students had arrived at Hogwarts, and the whole castle was buzzing with Harry Potter's admission to Gryffindor. First classes, first impressions of practical magic, first successes and failures. On Halloween, a troll snuck into the castle, but no deaths were avoided - Potter and the younger Weasley in a burst of heroism saved Hermione from the terrible beast, everyone is happy, except for the Dean of Slytherin.

Christmas, vacations, studying again, Easter vacation, and now it was time for exams, and in the dungeon under one of the rooms of the Forbidden Corridor on the third floor a heroic drama was played out, a fateful meeting between Potter and the spirit of Voldemort, who had taken over the body of the stupid and power-hungry Professor Quirrell.

All this time, in a separate ward of the hospital wing of Hogwarts, there was one young man with a blank stare of blue eyes. He came out of that contemplative state many more times than he did at home. No one in the castle, except the Headmaster and the mediwitch Poppy Pomfrey, knew that once a month Hector Granger's parents and the healer Smethwick visited the Hospital Wing through the fireplace. It would seem that one should have expected the boy's sister, but she was too much into new friends, studies and adventures, forgetting about her brother. Hermione herself carefully hid from herself the fact that she was glad that there was no need to look after Hector.

The children had left the castle for the summer vacation, and the only minor at Hogwarts was Hector Granger, who was faithfully taking potions that came out from under the hand of Severus Snape, a rather famous potions master both in England and on the continent. The boy himself was not taken away on the strong recommendation of the healers - they were afraid of regression, and therefore Granger faithfully visited him.

However, they did not come in August or September, at the beginning of the new school year, or in October. First they went on a long vacation in France with Hermione, then visited several resorts, saw different sights. Like the girl herself, the family had twofold feelings. On the one hand, they were happy about the absence of such a heavy burden as Hector. On the other hand, they felt a peculiar sense of betrayal. But you quickly get used to good things, and at Hogwarts the boy was under the watchful eye of Madam Pomfrey, a very competent healer.

Christmas came again, but this time there were even fewer students in the castle for the vacations - everyone feared the unknown Heir of Slytherin, and in the hospital wing there was already one petrified student and the housekeeper's cat.

As time went on, the attacks increased in frequency and panic gained momentum. Hermione was already in the Hospital Wing, and even one of Hogwarts' ghosts. But a thorough examination and diagnosis of the patients showed that their lives were not threatened. Of course, it was strange to many that Dumbledore, as headmaster, did nothing, as if he knew something, or if he didn't know, he guessed.

Just before the exams, a terrible thing happened - the Heir of Slytherin kidnapped a Gryffindor freshman, and the brave Harry Potter and Ron Weasley went on a rescue mission. However, they had to drag one of the most negligent ZOTI teachers in the history of Hogwarts along with them, and in Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets the unpleasant truth about him, the famous writer, Gilderoy Lockhart, came to light. It turned out that the feats in his books were not done by him at all, but by other wizards, from whom he had extracted details and erased their memories.

That same evening, Harry Potter, Ron and Ginny Weasley were in the Hospital Wing. Although they were bruised, and the national hero was almost fatally injured, they looked pleased. True, none of them, and indeed no one in the castle, not even Albus Dumbledore himself, knew that Phoenix Fawkes, while helping to blind the giant basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, had not pecked out the monster's eyes, but had plucked them out, bringing them into Hector Granger's hands. Why? Why? No one but the phoenix himself, who visited the strange boy secretly every week and always looked at him with curiosity, knows the answer to that question. Hector squeezed the basilisk's eyes that Fawkes had extracted, and they dissolved into a murky slurry in the boy's hands, immediately soaking into his skin.

After the exams, when the happy students went home, Hector woke up in a private room in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. But his gaze was no longer blank. Meaningful, alive, and... disgruntled.

He woke up suddenly. Strange and forgotten sensations from the senses, from every nerve. A heaviness, as if you'd been in the water for a week and had been thrown ashore, nailed to the surface. But it was a sensory shock for the mind, not for the organs and brain, and so I was out of it very quickly. Immediately I felt the lack of the familiar sensations of that strange space with particles of "everything". Staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, I quickly decided to remember the dream. Yes, the life of this body seemed to me like a dream. A vague, blurred, strange dream that retained few details.

Helpless, perpetually "absent" from the body, unable to go to the bathroom for a long time without help - that's exactly how I was. But even in such a vegetative state, those brief periods of mental clarity allowed my body to learn everything necessary to interact with the outside world and take care of my beloved self. My present relatives, I must say, have been through a lot!

With great difficulty and a cramp in my muscles that shouldn't be there, I pulled my head off the pillow and examined myself. A simple light-colored pajama suit, humanoid, human. A whole fountain of diverse and contradictory emotions spilled into my head at once. Shards of the elf's memory resented the current belonging to the inferior, shards of the dwarf's memory resented the weakness and frailty of a scanty body. The memory of those accustomed to darkness complained about the light, and so forth. The shards of numerous animals phoned with the desire to eat already, after all! Shards of intelligent people from the developed worlds cursed the backwardness of everything around them, and shards of several mages of different races and directions complained about the unfamiliarity of the energies around them. Hell, there was even discontent from shards of a different gender! And only the biggest shard, you could say the core, around which the others were lined up, was just happy to breathe the characteristic hospital smell with a touch of something strange, to see the daylight, to feel the body and just live. Too bad I'd lost a lot of things and my past life was gaping holes, and the other shards weren't able to patch those holes. No, there were a lot of them, a lot of them, enough for hundreds of holes, but they were different.

Each shard now felt like a part of me, as if it had once been me. When I thought about it, I came to the logical conclusion that maybe it was. A kind of reincarnation. Each life ended with death and falling into that strange space where you literally lose everything. Maybe after that you go to a new life, pure, without experience or memory, and then it's all over again. By some coincidence, I found myself able to absorb either someone else's or regain my own, lost over many lifetimes. It's a pity that it didn't come back completely.

I looked around and noticed a small closet with clothes next to the bed, a chalkboard, a table with stacks of papers, and a chair. The room was small and looked more like a quarantine isolation ward - the walls were clearly not capital.

I tried to move my limbs. My mind was quickly regaining its skills. A couple of minutes, and I got out of bed and changed into my regular clothes, which were stacked on the bedside table. Sport pants, T-shirt, socks, sneakers without laces, with elastic bands. To avoid untied shoelaces in my past state?

A series of simultaneous contradictory sensations from different shards of my soul caused a headache that made me sit back down on the couch, beginning to massage my temples. Something had to be done about this.

Memory... You shouldn't think of it as a collection of pictures or anything like that. It is a much more complex, complex system of associations and reactions to this or that external or internal stimulus. And these reactions, they are incredibly contradictory and relate to everything from the body to the environment and odors. They pull out associative chains, generating images and thoughts that cause only irritation with the situation. The rejection of everything at all and at the same time! This problem needs to be addressed, and addressed immediately.

Taking advantage of the elven meditative technique, in a split second fell into the void. It was worth only to wish, as a massive multicolored cloud appeared in front of his gaze. The problem was found at once - superimposing the memories of the shards one on top of the other. There were many such overlaps, and the reason for them was the lack of time stamps. Simply put, each shard was relevant right now, causing not only mush in the mind, but also brain overload due to maximizing the load on neural connections.

Experience with mental techniques from shards that belonged to wizards in some fantasy worlds gave me a method of creating a self-contained mental block to solve my problem. It was not easy to get to the right methods, because the necessary images were sometimes simply absent due to the inferiority of the shards, but I sort of managed. The mental block itself will set the marks according to the following principle: from simple organism to complex, from less mentally developed to more. The basis of the personality will be the last life of an ordinary person. Yes, a lot is lost there, but even so he is the most integral, and simply the last. All the rest will be a common memory, like a tightly remembered dream.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the following picture. Not far from my bunk, on a chair sat a suspicious gray-bearded old man in a purple robe, a composite image of fairy-tale wizards. Beside him stood a lady in her fifties in the uniform of some sort of sister of mercy. Familiar... Something familiar, but I couldn't quite make out the information. Though, associations began to lead me through the nooks and crannies of images from the memory of the shards rather quickly, filling in the gaps from other images. What a stupid mess in my head - I can hardly even think!

My last name seems familiar to me too... No, of course I know it, because it's mine. But it's as if I should know something from past lives, but it's gone. Like links to blank pages on the internet.

The two men looked at me intently, but were in no hurry to do anything.

- I think, Poppy, the boy has finally come to his senses.

- I agree, Albus. A meaningful look. Studious. Do you understand us, young man?

- I don't think so, Poppy," Albus shook his head in frustration. - He's been a bit... since birth, after all.

- I understand," I wheezed oddly, horrified at how reluctant and stubby my lips and tongue were moving. - It was like sleeping. I was dreaming.

I had to speak in stages, in short phrases, but even so, I felt that every sound I made improved my ability to speak. That's how useful these elven techniques are for accelerating learning and restoring mental activity. The adaptation of skills to the body goes just incredibly fast! Or maybe it's something else.

Elvish... Elvish... is the most controversial sliver of life in a thousand years. But it's as riddled and empty as it is huge. By inadvertently delving into unwinding associations through imagination, bodily sensations, and image representation, I was able to grasp several sensations stretching across this shard's full length. The sensation of a bow hilt in one hand, and an arrow between my fingers in the other. I felt the tension of the bowstring as if it were real, but I couldn't even roughly remember the shape of the bow, for example, or the face. They weren't there. Nothing led to them. I could reconstruct the sensations from circumstantial evidence from other shards, but that would be just that, a recreation. Although, this is the basis of memory - impulses from neuron to neuron cause their excitation and response impulses already to other neurons, causing a simulation of the stimulus and response. This, of course, is not the whole mechanism, but it is the basis of the memory of the organism, and it seems that the shards of memory provoked the corresponding development of the central nervous system ...

- The dream turned out to be life," I continued, coming back from reflection to reality. - I remember a lot of things. It takes practice...

- That's wonderful news! - The gray-bearded old man smiled happily, flashing his half-rimmed glasses. - To tell you the truth, we've been looking forward to seeing you awake.

- Slow down, Albus," the woman next to him looked at the old man reproachfully. - Your verbal laces are inappropriate right now. Keep it simple.

- You're right, Poppy. Habit. Do you know who you are? - the old man turned to me.

- A man, thirteen years old, a wizard, Hector Granger.

- Family?

- Parents, Emma and Robert Granger. Sister, Hermione Granger. Parents are dentists. Sister - due to finish her second year at Hogwarts School.

Looking around the room around him, he added:

- That school. Strange. It felt like a dream. Real, but a dream. Turns out it wasn't.

- May I check on you?

- Uh, yeah.

- Poppy?

The woman didn't need any more reminders - she took out her wand and, coming toward me, began to wave it in the air. I was curious, but the human eye wasn't adapted to detecting radiation from the magical range, so I didn't see any specifics. In the normal visual spectrum, however, I could see small waves of slight space distortion coming from the woman's wand toward me. After a dozen seconds of silent manipulation, the woman stepped back to the seated and smiling old man.

- Everything is fine, Albus, except that the brain activity has dropped just a little bit and is still abnormally high. Underweight, thin, and some complex underdevelopment of muscles. With these exceptions, everything is in perfect condition.

- That's great news. I believed it would work out, and in your qualifications as well as Smethwick's. We just need to observe for a couple of days, consolidate the results, and if there are no relapses or regressions, Mr. Granger can be discharged.

This was said more obviously for me, for I could see in the eyes of the woman called Poppy that she had come to the same conclusions herself.

- Can you introduce yourself? - I asked, looking at them.

- Oh, yes! Old age is no fun. I forgot," the old man smiled. - Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

- Poppy Pomfrey, mediwitch, working in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. You're in that wing, by the way.

- Right. Thank you. Hector Granger. You know. Do they feed you here?

Albus chuckled, and wishing me nothing but the best, left my room. Mediwoman Pomfrey promised a hearty lunch in a couple seconds, asked me to wait here, and left as well. Lunch did indeed appear. Suddenly and on its own, taking up an empty spot on the table. Salads, meat dishes, side dishes, tea, juice, scones. Quite entertaining, because each dish requires a different approach to wielding the cutlery, not just rowing a spoon. A test of skill? Maybe, but I don't mind.

After that visit, time flew by pretty quickly. I was visited by Madam Pomfrey very often, checking something, witching, bringing potions and talking about distracting topics. Or rather, she asked, stimulating my desire to talk. Mostly about mundane things. On the one hand, it allowed her to learn the extent of my awareness of everyday life and the realities around me, and on the other hand, it was conversational practice. Although, already on the third day I could speak calmly, muscles and ligaments of the speech apparatus did not get tired from the unusual load, and speech became smooth and competent, without distortions of sounds and other garbage.

Physical activity in the form of simple movement in space or just the correct use of cutlery, books, notebooks, pencils, all this was relatively normal, but about complex motor skills or some atypical movements can still be forgotten - the body in this regard is really not developed and it will take a long time to work on it. I am flexible, though.

The adjusted mental block finished its work on the first day and now I was not torn by contradictory emotions appearing at the same time. But that doesn't mean the shards stopped affecting me at all, no. They are "I" and this very "I" doesn't like... A lot of things. In order, because of the shard memory, I'm simply not satisfied with either side of the situation. A dwarf should be a strong warrior, a skillful blacksmith, a cunning businessman. From a young age. Strong and hardy. If not, it is better to go straight to the deep paths for one last trek and not disgrace the clan with my existence. As an elf, I should be skilled in the arts, flexible and agile, a deadly fighter in close and ranged combat, and possess a bunch of other skills and abilities. If this is not the case, then I should think about the meaning of immortal life, and whether to fertilize the Mallorns. And such "ifs" - a whole carload and a small cart. And only the human basis hints, "No talent at thirteen? That's fine."

All week long I've been trying to figure out how to go on living. According to this body's memories, I'm going to have to build relationships with my relatives, study at this Hogwarts, whatever it is, grow up, and so on. It's horrible. Just awful.

After a week of supervision, old man Dumbledore showed up at my door and together we went to my parents' house. By fireplace. An amazing transportation system that works on the principles of puncturing space! And no, I didn't understand the basics of this system, but by some associations in the shards of memory, I was able to understand at least what it was. Still, it's not clear to me how I should feel about memory shards. They feel like I'm in a live movie, a kind of "total immersion" - once organized, a lot of things don't resonate emotionally and are more like information. Information worth studying properly.

By the fireplace we moved to a very unpresentable drinking establishment, decorated like an old tavern. The few visitors looked unkempt and even looked like homeless people, though it was the end of the twentieth century, and these people, as I understand, must be wizards. It's a terrible shame for a wizard to be so homeless.

- The Hole Cauldron," the Headmaster explained as we walked toward the exit of the hall. To the Headmaster, by the way, many nodded with a smile. - One of the few passageways to London's main magical street, Scythe Alley. I think Professor McGonagall will tell you more about it when you go shopping. Or would you rather go with your sister?

- I don't know.

- Maybe that would be better, though I know she was planning on spending the rest of the vacation with friends.

- I'll leave her to it, then.

As we left the Hole Cauldron, we found ourselves on a quite ordinary and period-appropriate London street. People in ordinary everyday clothes were walking back and forth, cars were driving, technogenic noise hit my ears, and my sense of smell sounded an alarm - the atmosphere of the metropolis could cause sensory shock.

- Here are your parents," the director smiled and nodded toward the car parked nearby. An old Land Rover. Old, even for today.

The principal waved his hand slightly in the air, and I felt a slight energy fluctuation. The man and woman standing by the car, whom I vaguely remembered, immediately turned their attention to the two of us.

- Headmaster Dumbledore? - The woman turned to the old man and shifted her gaze to me. - Hector?

- Hello? I guess so," I nodded without much emotion. And that's when the snot started.

Mom, and it was her, because even a blind man would have noticed the resemblance between our faces, immediately rushed to me and hugged me. Yes, it was the first time I'd ever seen her son look at me in a conscious and intelligent way. The father was much more restrained, came over and said hello to the principal. By the hand.

- Thank you for your help.

- As I said," the headmaster smiled, "it wasn't difficult or expensive, and even without our help the boy would have come to his senses, albeit a little later.

After exchanging a few more words with the director, my parents quickly took me into the car, and my mom sat next to me in the back seat, not about to let me out of her arms. I don't want to break anything, I'm as thin as a stick.

When I got home I was shown everything at once, though I remembered everything. Then they sat me down at the table.

- You're so thin, what a nightmare, - my mother wailed, putting something meat on my plate.

- I was like this before. I said I remember everything.

My hands weren't very good at holding the fork properly, as my upbringing from the shards demanded, and I had to simplify my grip a bit, the way my body had learned to do when it was on autopilot. Yes, I know I hold the instruments the way a human is used to, but the damn shard elf-albeit a nearly empty one-had things in him that he did a lot more often than a human, because he'd just lived longer.

- Needs more practice," I remarked aloud.

My parents, on the other hand, looked at me with relief.

The rest of the day went on like that. They showed me around the house, educating me on what was what and how to use it. To my surprise I noticed that some technical nuances, for example, the remote control from the TV set, at first caused some stupor, but as if reluctantly from the memory came up an understanding of both the internal structure of the TV set on the electron-beam tube, and the remote control. And how to use it, of course.

Hermione. Sister. A girl like a girl. Except now she's really gone to her friends, and her parents complain that it's impossible to get in touch. Owls need postal mail, and wizards have no other connection. That's crazy. Oh, well, you don't go to other people's monasteries with your prayers.

Though my birthday, the Fourth of July, I met at Hogwarts, but nothing prevented me from celebrating it with tea and cake. By the twentieth, the excitement of my recovery had died down in the house, and my parents had stopped hanging around me like fairy bears at a honeypot. Now I not only read various literature to check the completeness of my knowledge, but also could think alone, and there was a lot to think about.

The first was physique. A healthy body is a healthy spirit, and this is not just a saying. The state of the body is very important to a magical being, which includes absolutely any organics with a gift for manipulating energies. When the healer Smetvik came to us, if I recall correctly, he spoke of a "triad": body, soul, and mind. The state of the soul has yet to be verified, the mind I have more or less organized and the body remains.

At the moment I am the happy owner of a male body of thirteen years old. Somewhat taller than my peers, thin, muscles mediocre. Health has been said to be fine, only my brain is abnormally overworked. That needs to change. No, not in terms of brains, but physical development, and there are several ways I can help. The classic of the genre is physical training. Add to them magical support in the form of potions and tinctures. But first I should be concerned with diagnostics of magical abilities and carrying out the installation of connection with different energies. And that means we should start with magic. What do I know about magic from the memories of the shards? Not much, and almost no specifics - general facts and thoughts that were most often in the minds of the shards. And a couple of dozens of techniques, as well as the most frequently used, and therefore best "captured".

Magic itself is a complex direction of conscious manipulation of versatile and diverse energies of the universe to change or embody various properties and aspects of reality. Simply put, magic is a discipline, magic is a process.

Since magic allows us to manipulate energies, a legitimate question arises: "What kind of energies?". As obvious as the answer is, the answer is simple: any kind of energies. The elves in their time proved that everything that exists is a form of energy. This fact is superimposed on the multidimensionality of reality and gives rise to an infinite variety of energies of the most different kind, tone and properties.

Multidimensionality? An infinite number of dimensions within a single space. Many of such dimensions are filled with certain energy, the name of which is maximally close to embodied or related effects, properties and other facets of reality. For example, such trivialities as the energy of fire, water or electricity, life, light, darkness, death, and so on. An immeasurable multitude. Some merge to form other, more complex ones, and some cannot be combined, like matter with antimatter - there will be a big ba-da-boom.

I yawned vigorously and decided that it was time to go to bed. No matter how healthy the body was, it could not boast of stamina. Yes, sleep...

The soft comfortable pillow beneath my head was imperceptibly replaced by a light cool breeze carrying the scents of the summer forest. A magical forest - I could feel it immediately. Gently stepping over the root of a centuries-old tree protruding from the ground, I inadvertently glanced up at the green crowns, through which daylight barely penetrated.

A step, another step, and no one would have heard the movement. My hand clutched the handle of my bow familiarly, and an arrow came from the quiver as I saw a shadow flicker between the trees. The arrow was instantly in my hand, and now I was aiming, pulling the bowstring taut. I gathered some wind magic and directed it at the arrow, forming a simple magical construct.

With a characteristic click, the bowstring threw the arrow. Obeying the will of magic, the arrow passed the tree trunks, and a moment later, there, in the distance, a dirty man in leather armor fell out from behind a tree.

- They're here! - A man shouted in one of the human languages, but I could already sense the enemy's presence, direction, and distance.

One by one, the arrows left my quiver and took flight, and with the help of magic they changed their direction, unmistakably finding the end of their path in the heart of the enemy. A moment, and it was over, and only the disturbed birds were screaming somewhere above, in the crowns of the trees.

A few dozen light, weightless jumps, and there I was, leaning over the body of one of the men, stretching my palms over the body and creating a magical diagnostic seal, the color of which was green because of the energy of life. Blinking, it seemed as if I had fallen into darkness.

I opened my eyes again, standing next to a crib woven of branches, where a chubby little boy with pointed ears was sleeping sweetly in white sheets, and the green diagnostic seal was slowly flying off my outstretched hands. His parents didn't distract me, and I was quickly done with the task at hand. Turning my head to the right, I met the concerned and hopeful gazes of a young-looking pair of elves in loose, light-colored robes styled with plant motifs.

- Your baby is completely healthy," I said with a slight smile. - That is a great joy.

The elfess sighed with relief, not hiding her smile, and her husband nodded as if it were not possible. The elfess looked at me again, and noticed in my meager expression not only polite joy, but also concern.

- But it's not all joy, is it? - she asked, not hiding her renewed concern.

- You're right," I nodded curtly.

- Speak, healer, don't keep me waiting," the elf said with restraint.

- The little one has a bright predisposition to connect with the death energy dimension.

The elfess covered her mouth with her palms, but the elf only pressed his lips tighter together.

- You yourself understand what such a thing means. The Elders will not allow an initiated necromancer to live in the Forest. And to neglect initiation...

- We understand," the elf nodded. - The craving for kin energy and the impossibility of obtaining it will twist his mind, pushing him to extract it naturally. The most brutal way possible.

- Yes. I will initiate him into the dimension of life as I should - the child will be compatible with it, as we all are. But the rest... It's your choice. Do you need time to think?

- Do whatever you need to do," the elf nodded stubbornly, and his wife placed her palm gratefully on his forearm.

- Are you sure? With your position in society...

- Our son won't be a mad ripper, but he won't grow up an orphan either, healer.

I didn't expect any other answer. Not after a century of this couple trying to conceive a child. Now all they need to do is create the right seals to connect the baby to the energy dimensions of life and death.

Removing my shoulder bag, I set it on the floor of the living tree house to retrieve the necessary ingredients. Looking up, I saw the empty streets of the white stone city. Perfect walls of two and three-story houses, but the windows were tightly closed, and only from some of them looked out the curious faces of children, almost immediately led away by their parents. There, in the distance, the bright spires of the Academy could be seen, and the shielded magic storage units on the tallest of the towers glowed with barely visible blue dots.

- Are you ready? - An elderly voice sounded from the side of my head.

Turning my head at the sound, I saw an old man in a blue robe who bored me. With one hand he held a massive white wooden staff, topped with a pointed blue quartz - a rare mineral and one of the best storers of any magical energy.

- A little more respect for your elders, Rector," I grinned, pulling from my bag a bunch of oblong metal cylinders inscribed with tiny runes.

- No," the old man pursed his lips stubbornly, running his hand over his snow-white beard. - I didn't work for the Empire for two hundred years to not be able to say what I want to say in my old age. And the way I want.

I got up and stood next to the old man. We were both looking at the same thing - a fenced-in plot with a large private mansion. Except that it fell out of the general "ideality" of the city - almost the whole territory was as if covered with a viscous dark fog, and the ground, trees, walls of the house - everything seemed to be covered with an almost impenetrable black mass.

- And what was it this time? A failed experiment? - I turned to the old man, looking for dark amorphous shadows appearing and disappearing now and then in this disgusting magical mess.

- Narcissistic magical families, that's what. Told them their child was incapable of projecting dimensional energy into reality, but no, they're fools," the old man grumbled, tapping his staff on the perfectly smooth stone of the road beneath his feet.

- Did they have an initiation?

- Exactly! They're the smartest of them all. They've been around since the founding of the Empire! And if they had initiated with fire, they would have burned to death. But no, darkness and chaos. It's a pity for the child.

- No adults?

- I've been tired of pitying fools for 50 years. There's not enough pity for all of them. Where have you been? Meditating on a bush again?

- You're exaggerating, Rector.

Suddenly, the mansion literally exploded into darkness, and from its depths a giant amorphous shadow, based on a huge black skull with an open jaw, darted toward us. It was inexorably approaching, causing fear...

Jumping up in my bed, I felt my nightgown clinging to my body and soaking wet.

- A dream... Just a dream..." I said aloud, looking around the dark room.

A swarm of shadows in the corner caught my attention. As soon as I looked there, a black skull flew out of the darkness, coming at me with a nasty squeak.

I jumped up in my bed and looked at the nasty electronic alarm clock, which was making a nasty squeaky noise. With a relieved exhale, I turned it off with the push of a button, and immediately collapsed back into bed. There was no sweat.

- Shit.