"!! What were you thinking... ?!"
Quinn pursed his lips and held back the groan. Alan wasn't the scolding type and preferred to mock instead to get his point across, so seeing him raise his voice made Quinn squirmy. He didn't dare meet eyes with Alan, choosing to maintain eye contact and instead focus on Alan's hands.
"Why in the name of basic sanity would you go back there," Alan chastised. "Did you forget what you went through the last time— you lost control over your magic! If you did somehow forget, if you hadn't been able to regain the focus back, we would've to seal your magic so that it wouldn't kill you! Sealing your magic, Quinn! Do you know what that entails? It's not natural— your body would reject the procedure done to seal the magic, and in the history of sealing magic, every single case, without exception, had seen complications with health for the rest of their lives, and that's when the procedure is successful— the abominable procedure has a high mortality rate and someone like you with so much magic might just have died because of it!"
Quinn chose not to reply to that; more like he couldn't respond to that.
Described as a "dark" and "parasitic" force, an Obscurus was created when the wizard child in question consciously attempted to repress their magical abilities or were forced to do so through physical or psychological abuse. This energy could manifest itself as a separate entity erupting in violent, destructive fury. — The point to notice about Obscurus was the repression of magic. The medical procedure Alan talked about held a similar danger to the mysterious Obscurus as in undergoing the procedure meant unnaturally repressing — or sealing — magic, which while didn't result in the patient becoming Obscurus, did hold other complications like a life long degradation of health and a high chance of death while undergoing the procedure.
All those years ago, if Quinn hadn't regained his magic, he would have to go under the procedure to give himself a living chance against his own constantly rampaging magic. The magic sealing procedure was one of the primary motivations for him to regain his focus as soon as possible— the desperation pushing him harder and harder to achieve more in lesser time.
"I thought I would be able to handle it this time around," said Quinn, massaging his temple. Obviously, it hadn't gone as he wished it would've been— things rarely went his way when it came to the Cursed Vaults.
"And do tell what made you think that you would be able to handle a curse with a design that targets the Soul," Alan said in a rare no-nonsense tone.
Quinn looked at Alan. He slipped his hand into the breast pocket of his coat, where he usually fixed his expanded pockets and took a hardback book.
"What is this?" Alan asked as he looked at the book that Quinn had handed him. "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," he gazed at the cover art painted in shades and hues of green and black, "what is this... a fairy tail collection? What does a children's fiction have to do with any of this."
"Read the work titled, The Tale of Three Brothers," said Quinn. It wasn't surprising that Alan didn't know of the book— it was a British special while Alan was a New Zealander.
Alan furrowed his brows and peered at Quinn, asking for a direct answer, but Quinn pointed at the book. Alan glanced down and opened the book with scepticism. He flipped through the pages, looking for the story; he found and started reading the semi-poetic words written between illustrations depicting the story; the art moved — the robes of three brothers fluttered in the wind while Death's robe remained still like death itself.
By the time Alan was done, the course on the table had changed. Gone was the soup, replaced by a tantalizing appetizer— only neither were particularly in the mood of enjoying it.
"I read it," said Alan, closing the book, "now what; I still don't see how any of this related to your current situation."
Quinn snapped his fingers, and the wisp of flame appeared on the top of his index fingertip. "As you can see, I am still able to use magic, and I'm not using Occlumency to hold it back," said Quinn. "The situation isn't as dire as it was the last time."
Alan blinked. It seemed that he had missed that Quinn could still use his magic and, from the looks of it, without any difficulty.
"What do you think of the three artifacts in the tale, the Deathly Hallows," he asked.
"What do I think of them? I think nothing of them— they're fictional. Where are you going with this; come to the point."
Quinn stared at Alan for a while before he raised a finger on the hand that rested palm flat on the table. The platinum chain around Quinn's neck wiggled out from within his collar and levitated out with the pendant piece acting as the flying anchor. Quinn grabbed the pendant piece, and when he opened his fist, a black stone set on his palm.
"See this and tell me if it reminds you of something," said Quinn as he removed his palm beneath the Stone, leaving it suspended in the air. He touched it with his finger and slowly drifted to Alan.
Alan observed the black gemstone as it came to a stop in front of him. It slowly gyrated, showing its different polyhedral sides.
"Hmm?"
As the Stone gyrated, Alan caught the sight of something, and he squinted his eyes, waiting for it to return to the front, and when it did, his eyes went wide.
"Th-This... This!"
Alan immediately waved his bracelet styled magical focus laden hand, sending the pages flipping over till the book was opened to the last page of the Tales of Three Brother story and saw the sign made up from a triangle, circle, and a line....
"Is this real?"
Quinn nodded. "That's the Ressurection Stone mentioned in the story— the real deal."
Alan stared at the stone, his face painted in shock. He reached out to the Stone and clasped the stone between his fingers. He raised it above to his eyes and peered at it.
"This Stone can summon soul?"
"It can," said Quinn, "but don't try to use it."
Alan frowned and looked up at Quinn. "Why?"
"It's calling a dead soul back into the world of the living; that's unnatural. I don't know if there's a cost to the summoning of a dead soul. Cadmus, in the story, was driven mad."
"Then how do you know if it works?"
"Try channelling some magic into it; you'll get the feel of it, and know that just with one more step, a soul of your choice will descend into the mortal world."
Alan looked at the Stone, and the magic flowed into his bracelet focus and then into the Stone. "Ah... yes, it seems you're right... I can feel it, one command, and I'll have soul here in this room."
Quinn snapped his finger, and the stone wiggled out of Alan's hand and zoomed back into Quinn's. "Yeah, and that is why I dared to go back and give the Sin Vault another try. I studied the Stone for a while before I went diving back into the Vault.... alas," Quinn sighed, "it didn't work as I expected it to."
Alan nodded, but Quinn could see from his face that Alan was thinking about something else.
"What?" he asked.
"Where did you get this?" Alan asked.
"Ah, about that... let's just say I stole... borrowed it from a man, who didn't need it— did him a favor by taking it out his hand... yeah, totally," said Quinn.
"What about the other two Deathly Hallows, was it? The Wand and the Cloak. Do you know where they are; I mean, if you were able to find the Stone, then..."
"The other two Hallows are in possession of other people," said Quinn. "You know Albus Dumbledore?"
"Dumbledore? Your Headmaster, correct? Hmm, ah, I remember him— he was Flamel's apprentice, wasn't he? I think I met him once when I was helping Flamel's with some of his memory problems— The Alchemist and wife's minds were fascinating ones; both of them had been alive for so long that their minds were all cluttered— it is good that they called me in, or they might have had problems in the seventies.
Ah, that was a good time— not only did I get to study two unique minds being held up by the Elixir of Life, I also got a consume a dose of the infamous Elixir."
"Wait, seriously! You drank the Elixir of Life?!"
"I did," Alan said proudly. "Felt really young for a month— hadn't felt like that in a century."
"Wow, so lucky!"
"I sure was," Alan nodded. "So what about Dumbledore?"
"Ah yes, Dumbledore— he has the Elder Wand, the Death Stick."
"Oh? Another Deathly Hallow so close to you, now that's lucky."
Quinn chuckled, "The Cloak of Invisibility resides in the hands of the Potter family— they're the descendants of Ignotus Peverell— it's a Potter family heirloom." Just like Dumbledore, Quinn knew that Alan would know the Potter from his memories.
"Oh my, all three so near to each other," said Alan with surprise, "it must be fate."
Quinn made a scrunched-up face.
"What? Why is your face doing that?" asked Alan.
"I don't like that word," said Quinn.
"What word?"
"Fate," Quinn spat. "Come on, let's get back to the matter at hand."
"Ah, yes, the curse.... so you decided to give the Sin Vault another try because you had the Resurrection Stone with you, which is clearly a Soul artifact, giving you an insight into the soul," Alan then stared deeply at Quinn, "which also means that you have started Soul magic.... You have used magic on your soul."
Quinn nodded, understanding the severity of Alan's gaze. Soul magic was one of the most dangerous, if not THE most dangerous magic to its user. One mistake was all it took for one to bring ruin to the user's Soul and... soul magic was a mythical level practice on Earth— meaning there weren't many who dwelled into soul magic, which made it difficult to cure any damage to the Soul. Quinn was lucky that the Sin curse hadn't done any damage to his Soul in the original cursing and had only manipulated it while keeping pristine.
After all, as far as Quinn and Alan could tell, the Sin Vault was an experiment to push the limits of magic in humans through soul manipulation.
"Be careful, Quinn," said Alan. "Soul magic is perilous. Any mistake, and you'll be in deep trouble. It took me a long time to even start contemplating about diving into soul magic. I was already much-much older than you when I started— you... I don't even think you should be going into soul magic so young."
Quinn shrugged. He had started and was already deep because of Sin Vault and curse. Also... the Ressurection Stone in his grasp was too much of a temptation for him let go.
"You seem to be able to use magic without any problems," said Alan. "Which means that there must be something different this time around— your work with soul magic must've done some good."
"Yes... something is very different. Last time, all you were able to work with was the aftermath— the curse was already out of me before you examined me," Quinn chuckled as he pointed at himself. "This time around... I brought the actual curse along with me."
Alan's eyes widened as he looked at Quinn's chest, his eyes turning gold.
.
-*-*-*-*-*-
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Alan D. Baddeley - Master - I have met some interesting people in my life.
Quinn West - MC - "..... "
FictionOnlyReader - MC - Now we see what Alan tells Quinn.
