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Chapter 18: The Headmaster's summons
🕑 Added 2023-06-13 09:06:59 +0000 UTCHarry was in the library, which in itself wasn't particularly odd. He was in the library often enough, although less than at the beginning of the year. These days he was mostly practising potions with Penny, learning to cast the disillusionment and noise-muffling charms as a combo and finishing up the formal aspects of his word-searching spell. Finalising the formal aspects, because the magical ones were completed. The spell was done. The only thing he and Flitwick were working on right now was writing a tidy little booklet on its usage and creation process. Something to celebrate for sure, but the best celebration that Harry could think of was using the spell in the library to finally nail down the elusive topic of occlumency. That was why he was hiding behind a book-shelf in the charms section. Despite how much Flitwick claimed that he'd cleared the usage of this particular spell with the hawkish librarian, Harry didn't trust the woman to not give out detention out of spite. She probably put a lot of effort into making it impossible to find anything in the Hogwarts library, and wouldn't react well to him thwarting her fiendish efforts.
He narrowed his eyes at the villain reading something behind her librarian's counter.
Thankfully littera revelio was a spell he could do wordlessly, it wouldn't do to summon the beast by casting something out loud. Huffing he thus turned towards the bookshelf he wanted to examine first and surreptitiously cast the spell in the tightest wand-waving manner possible as he formed the word occlumency in his head. He didn't need to write it out anymore. He raised an eyebrow when the spell took effect, but only managed to light up twice, for the same book, out of perhaps 2000. Walking over to the book that was highlighted he read the title of 'Defensive charms for the paranoid' and pulled it out from where it was quite firmly lodged between 'degnoming your dreams' and 'The grapes of bath'. Flipping to the page which had the already fading golden marking he tried to not become discouraged at the shortness of the passage. It was just a paragraph really, at the end of 'obscure attacks and how to defend against them'.
One form of aggression that is too different from others to be properly defended against is that of mental intrusion. The discipline that can be used to successfully defend against this form of attack is referred to as occlumency, a form of mind magic that offers other benefits other than just the immediately obvious. However, occlumency is not a discipline that the unwary should embark on, for it often requires great sacrifices to learn. At least so I've heard.
That was it. Harry furrowed his brow, stepped back and cast the spell again, this time imagining the form of the word to be non-cursive. No luck. Putting the book back in its place he turned around to do the other book-shelf. This one, as well, offered nothing to the knowledge-seeking first-year student.
Cursing quietly Harry examined the other book-shelves as stealthily as possible, making sure to avoid Pince's notice. Querying for anything related to occlumency, legilimency and the mind arts, didn't net him much. Two books, one history book describing the legal work the ministry did a few centuries ago to illegalize legilimency; the other one was a catalogue of obscure magics. Occlumency was shortly described as a discipline occupied with defending one's mind from harmful influences and organising one's thoughts. Improper usage, was warned, could lead to madness.
Harry looked around the library he was in. It couldn't be… Could it? That a library which had to have a round 15.000 books only mentioned the mind arts three times. Probably more, under different names, but still, his spell should have picked something up, unless it was not as good as he and Flitwick assumed it was? Giggling resounded from behind him and he turned around to see two Gryffindor first year girls looking at him from behind a book-shelf and whispering to each other.
Improper usage could lead to madness, resounded in his mind and Harry sighed in defeat and sat down. Occlumency was dangerous, so was legilimency, it made perfect sense for it to not be available just like that in a school. There were children here, who one probably shouldn't even be trusting with the spells they actually were teaching in class.
He perked up however, because this was what the restricted section was for. All the books that were too dangerous for unsupervised consumption. He glanced at the entrance to the section, a small open doorway with a little chain blocking the entrance. Probably enchanted in some way.
One needed a pass from a professor, but despite how professors seemed more willing to help Harry out since he'd finished the spell with Flitwick, he doubted they would give permission to a first-year so that said first-year could go look up topics which might make him go insane.
Walking over to a book-shelf situated perfectly for getting a glimpse into the restricted section he picked up a book on animate transfiguration and pretended to read it as he aimed his wand. After casting the spell he was just able to make out two entire books lighting up like Christmas trees from where he could see them-. A hand grasped him suddenly on the shoulder.
Harry jumped like a drenched cat and spun around faster than a fighter jet. Breathing heavily and with doubtlessly wide-eyes he looked at the similarly scared Hufflepuff prefect who'd clasped him on the shoulder.
"Shit, Evans. Why'd you scare me like that," the teenager said, eyes wide, slowly putting a hand to his heart and breathing out slowly. He glanced at what Harry had been pretending to read and winced. "Animate transfiguration huh, don't worry too much about it, I'm sure you'll do fine when it's introduced in second year,” the boy said, gently taking the book out of his hands and putting it back where Harry had found it. "Don't bother with it quite yet, will you, nasty stuff,” he muttered, before pepping up. "Anyway, I just came here to tell you that the headmaster wants to see you after dinner. The password is lemon pop."
"But that's in four hours!" Harry exclaimed, causing the perfect to look at his watch.
"Well, it's in two hours, I guess you lost track of time."
"Did he say what he wanted?" Harry asked, wondering what he'd done to catch Dumbledore's attention. Not many students got to talk to the man. Seeing the principal didn't have the same connotation here as it did in the muggle world, since the heads of houses managed most manners internally, but it still usually wasn't a good sign.
The prefect shrugged and made to leave. "Who knows, bit bonkers that one. Probably wants to congratulate you for your transfiguration skills? I heard you were pretty good. I got to go though, bye, Evans,” the boy said before strolling off, as if he hadn't just delivered a potential death sentence to Harry who had a lot of things to hide in his head.
"Out! Evans! Too much talking!" Pince shouted once the prefect had left, confirming Harry's suspicion that she was a horrid bitch. He left with one last forlorn look at the restricted section. It would be impossible to break in there and learn how to defend his mind Dumbledore in two hours.
Harry could simply not go… But that would mean that he would give Dumbledore a reason to suspect him. There was only one option really left, Harry thought as he exited the library and dodged into a nook where no-one could see him. He disillusioned himself as he was already used to doing for his evening walks around the castle and then cast a soft-spoken "muffliato," to remove any sounds he made. Then he ran.
It was while he was trying to find the fastest way to the seventh floor that Harry went through his reasoning for not wanting anyone to find out about his existence again, to make sure there wasn't a logical fallacy somewhere in his thought process. Fact. His reincarnation and somewhat useful future knowledge was something that anyone would be interested in exploiting. Now, these potential exploiters belonged to different categories of course, and if the original books held true, Dumbledore would still be the most benign of people to find out his secret. Issue, his book knowledge was unreliable, perhaps Dumbledore was even more flawed here than he was originally supposed to be, it was better to err on the side of caution. Another issue, Harry didn't know the mechanisms through which he'd begun inhabiting his current body. Perhaps a wizard of Dumbledore's power and knowledge could recognize what exactly Harry was and in the worst case, deem him some twisted abomination that needed to be exorcised.
After all, no matter how much this was Harry's life now, considering he'd lived the sheer entirety of it, he was essentially still just possessing the body of a child. Literally. There were thus several reasons for why it would be better to not let anyone know about the truth of his existence, he concluded as he caught sight of some Slytherin first-years on his way to the fifth floor now. Running towards them, silent and invisible as he was, he couldn't help but think of some mischief once he noticed that it was the very same group that had attempted to catch him outside the potions classroom a few days ago, including Montague. Going into a low running position he tackled one of them from behind, lifted him up by the knees and threw him away behind him. The children screamed and Harry continued running onwards with a cackle.
"And his name is John Cena!" he shouted, secure in his knowledge that no one could hear him through his spell.
Going back to serious matters however, the last issue with Dumbledore knowing, although perhaps not with him in particular, was the fact that two people could keep a secret only if one of them was dead. Now Dumbledore was actually quite proficient in the keeping secrets department. But as with all things in life, ‘Never share a secret you aren't comfortable with everyone knowing,’ Harry thought as he wheezed, out of breath, in front of the wall on the seventh floor that supposedly held the room of requirement.
Calming down for a second and casting a quick tempus, seeing that he'd needed seven minutes to get here, Harry began pacing back and forth in front of the blank stretch of wall. He was still invisible, but it wasn't like the room should care. After all, he thought, the most important thing was the desire. And for that, Harry put, 'I need a way to defend my mind from legilimency' firmly at the front of his outwardly projecting mind.
If he'd had any more time he would have asked for a way to learn how to defend his mind, but while Harry was smart he wasn't sure he could learn to keep out what was probably one of the most powerful legilimens in the country in less than two hours.
A door appeared at his third passing and Harry quickly rushed through it, only to pause at what he found.
A grand cathedral, somewhat resembling how the room of hidden things probably looked like when empty. Sun shone through coloured glass, light-beams highlighting beautiful marble arches and statues. An empty and beautiful room fit for an audience with a king and in the middle lay…
In the middle of the floor there was…
"Is this a fucking joke," Harry whispered as he cautiously stepped towards the object. An unremarkable pair of reflective sunglasses. Well, not so unremarkable on closer inspection, they were from Chanel, the iconic crossed double C visible on both sides. Harry's hand twitched. He didn't know if it was to pick up the sunglasses or to hit himself.
"Fucking eye contact. Reflective sunglasses. I swear to the fucking lord,” he said and sighed in exasperation while looking up at the flawless marble ceiling. "Well, if it's really that simple, then I have time to experiment,” he concluded before turning around and exiting the room to see what other mystical objects the room could offer to protect him from having his mind-read.
