[ASSIMILATING...]
This mechanical sound was the first thing he heard when he became aware.
But the weird thing was, that while he was aware, he still wasn't fully awake...if that made sense.
He was in some kind of an intermediate state, where he seemed to be dreaming but his mind was fully alert.
It was like one of those lucid dream things, where you're asleep but you still have some control over your thoughts and your actions...
He slowly looked around him and noticed that he was in some kind of a void but... it wasn't a completely empty void.
No, all around him he could see rolls and rolls of big and small films, filled with all kinds of vivid images, they were somewhat like those reel-things people used before the invention of digital cameras.
Sam didn't know why but he somehow had the feeling that these 'rolls of films' were in fact... memories. Memories that he could browse through.
On the whole, the memories seemed to be placed in no particular order and were just haphazardly lying in all directions. But there seemed to be some kind of an invisible line that divided the chaos of memories into two with him in the middle, with the memories on the left side having a much higher quantity of reels than the ones on the right.
Just as Sam was trying to find a way to look closer, he was startled when a reel abruptly leapt from the left side and came to a stop right in front of him and before he could comprehend the situation, the film started rolling and showing him the memories inside it.
But it wasn't anything like watching those flickering old movies... No, every time an image passed on the screen in front of him, Sam was suddenly transported into the memory it represented as if he was reliving it... It felt like a VR but a hundred times better.
But the memories moved quite fast... as if he was watching a day's worth of content compressed into just a few minutes. Only if he really focused did they slow down enough for him to understand them.
Sam didn't have a body in this void so he couldn't move away from the screen and was somewhat strapped to a seat and forced to watch these memories.
The first few memories were those of his childhood...
When he was brought into this world (Ugh!), when he was abandoned a few days later by a young girl (which he definitely didn't care about, Humph!), and then began the oh! so wonderful life at the orphanage.
But it wasn't long before a change occurred...
Instead of coming from the left, this time a memory jumped out from the right side...The memories still seemed to be those of a toddler, it's just that this time instead of a brown-haired toddler this one contained a red-haired one...
Unlike the embarrassment and irritation, Sam felt while watching his own toddler days, he was kind of fascinated by these new ones because... they were magical.
The memories began alternating from the left and the right side from then on... and he only needed to watch a few more from the right side to realise who the red-haired kid was...
Yep! It was none other than the youngest son of the Weasley household, the third pillar of the infamous golden trio, the man who was always accused of putting his foot in his mouth, and the man who somehow got 'the girl' in the end... Ronald Weasley.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sam was stuck with this weird feeling of Deja vu, as if he was forgetting something, as if he should know why he was being made to watch the memories of a character from the Harry Potter series... But for the life of him, he just couldn't get to the answers.
It was almost at the tip of his tongue but he just couldn't remember it.
It was as if... as if his thoughts were being suppressed by someone as if they were being restricted so that he could only focus on the memories... and Sam didn't mind that too much because he absolutely loved the Harry Potter series.
He could almost be considered a part-time Harry Potter nerd, who had not only watched all the films when they were released but had also read the first five books front to back. So, of course, he was very interested in watching Ron's memories.
As a fan of the series, going through these memories was as if he was being given a unique opportunity to watch additional behind-the-scenes content that had never been released to the masses... it was all very exhilarating.
He sat through the magical memories of Ron with his full focus while fast-forwarding through the boring memories of the orphanage.
But even when he was completely focused, the roll of memories still moved fast enough that he barely had time to savour them, and could only vaguely remember one after it was finished and the next one began.
But they were still very entertaining so he didn't mind it too much...
One after the other, he went through the unseen life of Ron in the Weasley household, of when the red-haired boy took his first steps, of when he spoke his first words, of when his little sister was born, of when he saw magic for the first time, of when he was pranked by the twins for the first time, of how delighted he was when the first word out of Ginny's mouth was Ron, of when he stole his mother's wand and was punished, of how sad he felt when everyone forgot his birthday because they were too busy, of how jealous he left when Ginny got a brand new Harry Potter book set for her birthday while all he got was pair off hand me down gloves, of how lonely he felt when all his brothers left for Hogwarts...
Sam didn't notice it but every single memory had emotions accompanying it and they were having a very profound impact on his psyche... but Sam was too excited at the moment to feel it as it was finally time for the best part, the memories of Hogwarts.
They began of course with the journey to the train station, then came the first awkward meeting between the golden trio, then the sorting, then the troll, then the quidditch match, then the duel, then the mirror, then the investigations into Nicholas Flamel, then the dragon Norberta, then the exams, the obstacle course behind trap door...and then finally the knockout by the chess piece.
The first year ended with the year-end celebrations... and the second one began immediately with the summer rescue, then came the Weasley-Malfoy feud in the bookstore, then the flying car, then the detentions, then the petrifications, and so on... until the year-end celebration.
Another year ended and the third began with the news of the Azkaban breakout...
On and on the memories went one after the other and the years slowly started blurring into each other as Sam lost himself in the hallowed halls of Hogwarts. His mind had gone numb at some point and he was just soaking up all the memories like a hungry sponge...
It was only when Ron started going through puberty, and as his already intense emotions became even more extreme, that Sam began to notice the effect the red-haired boy's feelings were having on him.
Every time Ron felt envy, jealousy, anger, lust, or any other emotion, Sam felt them too, and ever so slowly these emotions began to resonate with him... until it became hard to distinguish between them.
At this point, Sam slowly had lost all his initial excitement and started to feel that it might not be such a good thing to go through these memories if he was going to lose his sense of self at the end.
But there was nothing he could do other than just focus a bit less on the painful parts so that they pass by a faster.
The fourth year came with the Triwizard tournament and brought along its own share of a new range of emotions, most particularly among them being... betrayal, envy, guilt, loneliness, fear and a few more of the good stuff.
He didn't know when but at some point, his mind had gone completely blank.
He didn't even notice when the fourth year ended and the fifth began... but one thing he was thankful for was that the fifth was a lot calmer than the fourth. It seems that Ron had finally matured a bit, plus instead of the shitty teenage emotions, the most prevalent emotion this year was fear... fear of You-Know-Who.
The year was also a lot more hectic, what with all the studying for the owls and the DA sessions.
So nothing too simulating happened to Ron until the near-death experience of his Father with Nagini, which hit Sam's psyche like a ram and left him teetering for quite a while.
So that the next time he woke up, the fight in the DOM had already begun.
He didn't know why but the memories of the DOM were unusually clear and sharp, it was as if all this time he was watching 720p and now suddenly he was gifted with 8k...
Sam watched through Ron's perspective as all of them ran and fought and got injured by the Death Eaters before a stray spell hit Ron and made him go a bit wonky...
The images were a lot blurry after that and the next clear memory was of him stupidly summoning a brain with tentacles towards him.
This memory was also the last one as the moment the brain wrapped around him, the roll of films ended and everything stopped.
Sam was only a little disappointed as he mostly felt relieved that the memories were finally over and that maybe he would finally get to leave this place...
But of course, that didn't happen...
Instead of him getting out of the void, the most loathful thing happened... the memories restarted. They began jumping in front of him once again and that too from the very beginning.
'Argh! Fuck! Let me go! I don't want to see them anymore' his soundless screams echoed in the void but it was fruitless, as the memories didn't care about him.
He thrashed, he screamed, he tried to close his mind, but nothing worked, the films went on regardless...
After the second time came a third time, then a fourth and then a fifth...
He didn't know how many iterations he had passed through... maybe ten, or maybe a hundred...
All he knew was that the memories of Ron were ever so slowly infiltrating his mind and with every iteration, they began to get clearer and more cemented.
All the holes were slowly being filled, and he began resonating with Ron's emotions more and more until at last... they became his own.
[ASSIMILATING...]
[ASSIMILATION COMPLETE]
There was suddenly a sense of relief as if a huge pressure had been lifted from his brain and when he became aware, he realised that the movie of memories had finally stopped.
'Ugh... is it finally over,' he thought while moving 'his eyes' all around him but he could still only see darkness, 'Am I still in the void, but where are—Wait! My eyes?! I have eyes!' he suddenly realised he had eyes and that he was back inside a body.
He still couldn't see where he was but that didn't matter as he was absolutely sure that he was human once again.
'Thank Merlin...' he sighed in relief, 'Wait! Why did I say that? I've never said that before...or have I? Wait a second... Who am I? Am I Sam? Or Am I Ron?... Ugh! Which one am I...'
Thankfully the restrictions that he had been under for so long were no more, so he was able to think a lot more clearly and was only confused for a few moments before realising what had happened to him.
'So the little fairy really sent me into the Harry Potter world, huh...' he was still a bit dazed about it all but was slowly coming to accept the situation.
'Now should I call myself Ron or Sam...'
'Hmm...I guess I'll pick Ron since Sam's already dead...' he thought after a while and it wasn't a very hard decision to make as he didn't have much of an attachment to his previous life.
'Though, Is this all even real? And what about my previous world, was that real? Or has this all been a simulation from the start...'
Fortunately, before his mid-life crisis could begin to have a hold on him, Sam or rather Ron crushed those thoughts into oblivion using his twenty years of experience as a depressed adult.
'Ah! Fuck it! Who cares,' he decided to leave the panic attacks to a later time when he was safe and sound because he knew from the most recent memories of Ron that currently he was inside the DOM with that brain thingy wrapped around his head... and that was not a very safe place to be in.
'First thing first, let's get out of here...,' Ron thought while moving his hands upwards to remove the abomination constricting him and squeezing the shit out of him. But the moment he moved, it seemed as if time started moving again and he suddenly heard a very loud shout.
"Harry, it'll suffocate him!" (Ginny?)
Before he could comprehend the situation, he felt Ginny try to roughly tug that thing right from his head, but before she could succeed, there was suddenly a sizzle and in the next moment he felt Ginny go flying into the air and slam into the wall with an uncomfortable thud.
Ron immediately froze in his bid to remove the tentacles as he realised and remembered that there was still a fight going on.
"STUBEFY!" shouted a retaliatory voice that he knew belonged to Neville, "STUBEFY! STUBEFY!"
But the passionate scream/spells didn't seem to have any effect as there was only a cackling from several adult voices... and spells once again rained towards their direction like arrows. Ron shivered and crouched on the ground as he felt spells passing him by and leaving craters in the wall.
Several things simultaneously happened in the next second, one of the lighter footsteps, probably Harry, ran like a rabbit straight towards the back while shouting at the top of his tongue.
His bid to attract the Death Eaters' attention seems to have worked as Ron felt the heavier adult footsteps run right behind Harry, knocking chairs and sending tables flying along the way.
None of them seemed to pay the rest of them any attention and seconds later the room had fallen completely silent except for one other person's laborious breathing right beside him.
"Ugh... Dob't borry, Bon. I-I bill get you out." Neville grunted while pulling hard on the octopus thingy on Ron's head with all his might, and Ron immediately joined him in the effort, and a few seconds of heaving later, the thing finally came off his head.
"Hu...hu...hu...Abright, Bon!" Neville asked with an ugly smile.
"Huh? Ah! No, I am fine," Ron replied instinctively to the teen who looked quite awful at that moment. His nose had been completely crushed and he also seemed to have bitten his tongue, plus his whole face was splattered with blood, making him look almost unrecognisable.
"I-I ab sorry, Bon but I have to go... but I probise I wib come back for you—," Neville said apologetically while hobbling towards the door at the end of the room. After sending one last apologetic glance towards Ron he disappeared into the same room where the others had gone to see if he could help Harry.
"Going into a fight when can use magic... the boy's definitely a Gryffindor..." Ron murmured in a somewhat impressed tone before he shook off his daze and began to stand up while looking around himself. His body was still a bit sore but other than that he was having no problem moving any parts of his body.
The Brain Room, which had looked quite pristine and empty when they had arrived earlier, now seemed as if a hurricane had passed through.
There were shards from broken tables, and chairs lying all over the floor, and the green liquid from the brain tank had also dribbled onto the floor making the bodies lying around wet, and not to forget the brains squiggling on the—Wait! Bodies?!
"GINNY! HERMIONE!" He shouted instinctively before running towards the bodies of the girls.
Ron hurriedly pulled them out of the rubble before placing them in a relatively dry place. He also found Luna along the way who seemed to be almost sleeping, with the serene smile she had on her face.
"Shit! What do I do now..." Ron murmured in a panicky voice while scratching his head.
While he knew from the movies from his previous life that they were all ultimately going to be fine with no long-term repercussions, it still felt a bit wrong to just leave them lying around like this..."Wait! That's Right! I can use magic now." he exclaimed before hurriedly turning around and scrambling towards the rubble.
"My Wand! Where's my wand!" It took a while but ultimately he managed to pull out the familiar piece of wand made of willow with a core of unicorn hair, from under a table.
The moment he touched the wand, Ron immediately felt a rush of energy course through his body, not dissimilar to the one he felt when he had held it for the first time in Ollivander's store.
"Cool..." He was quite fascinated by the phenomenon, but only for a few seconds before he pulled himself together and ran back to the girls.
"Right, let's do this..." he said before taking a deep breath and raising his wand.
While Ron had never learned any kind of healing magic, there was one piece of magic he had practised a lot during his DA sessions that he felt could be useful here.
"Rennervate!" He cast while pointing the wand towards his sister and thankfully, the spell worked perfectly as the moment the blue beam stuck Ginny, her body began to twitch and her eyes began to flutter as if she was about to wake up.
Now, a bit more confident he tried the spell once again while pointing towards Luna and Hermione.
"Rennervate! Rennervate!" But he was disappointed this time as it seemed that the girls were hit with something other than stunners.
"Mmm..." He suddenly heard a moan and quickly went back to his sister who had opened her eyes by now.
"Are you alright, Ginny?"
"Ugh, Ron? What are you— Wait? Where is everyone else?!"
"Harry attracted the Death Eaters attention and ran through the door and Neville went after him—"
"What? Why didn't you say that earlier? C-Come on, we need to help them!" Ginny cried and tried to stand but Ron immediately put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back before she could put her weight on her broken ankle.
"Don't be stupid, Ginny! You can't even stand up. How will you help them?"
"B-But we need to help them!" she said angrily while glaring towards her leg, "They could be out there dying or getting tortured, we need to do something—"
"Calm down, no one will die."
"How can you know that?!"
"Because I—" He wanted to say that he knew because of the memories of a book, which said that all of them would pull through this alive in the end, so there was no need to put themselves in unnecessary danger—"Oh! Shit! Sirius!" he swore as his head instinctively swirled towards the door with dread on his face as he suddenly remembered the only casualty of this fight.
"What? Don't you remember, Ron, Sirius isn't here... It was all a ruse to lure Harry," Ginny said confusedly, "Are you alright, Ron? Did the brain thingy mess with your head?" she asked in a concerned tone.
"Huh? Oh no, I am alright." Ron said absentmindedly before looking down as his mind began working furiously, trying to come up with a solution to this problem... and the only way he could think of was to go into the messy fight and save Sirius himself. And It didn't take long for Ron to make his decision.
If he just had the memories of Sam from the modern world, then he may have even hesitated a bit because of the danger. But he had memories of Ron too and Ron would never hesitate if he had a chance to save Sirius... after all, Harry would, and had already done the same so many times for his own family.
"You're right. They need help," Ron nodded to Ginny.
"That's good, Let's go then."
"No. I'll go but you need to stay here."
"B-But—"
"No Buts, Ginny," Ron shook his head firmly, "You won't be much help out there, and besides someone needs to be here to take care of Luna and Hermione, in case someone else attacks.
"Ugh..." she groaned in dissatisfaction but after seeing the vulnerable bodies of her friends, she didn't argue any further, "Fine! But be careful."
"Don't worry, I will," he said with a smile before standing up. "Oh right... Accio Ginny's Wand!" he waved his wand and almost immediately a smaller wand came flying out of the rubble and Ron easily caught it from the air.
It seems he not only had the complete repertoire of Ron's spells, but they also seemed to be working a lot more smoothly and fluently than he could remember.
It felt as if he had practised each of them countless times... even though Ron only ever practised them for assignments...
'It seems that being in the void for so long was useful for something after all...'
"Here take this," he handed over the wand to Ginny, "Just in case," he said to her and she nodded her head grimly.
Ron took one last deep breath before walking towards the door, 'Let's go save, Sirius' he thought firmly.
But just as he was about to open the door a light blue screen suddenly appeared in front of his face startling him.
[Quest Created: Save Sirius]
'What the fuck is that?'
/
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