"Your focus ability is completely gone, Quinn and the reason your magic is lashing out is that it has been artificially raised. You weren't meant to gain that much magic in that short amount of time. Your own magic is rejecting itself and is trying to get out."
Quinn, who had his eyes wide open, started to tap a foot against the floor. He didn't blink his eyes; all his attention was on Alan. He was hanging on his every word. The news wasn't getting good, but it was something he needed to hear.
"If you want to get your magic back, you just need to get it back under your control. The current you doesn't have even a bit of focus ability. You might be the only one at your age who can't keep his magic under wraps even when everything is alright. People don't have magic lashing out against their will. Their magic might not respond to them, but it doesn't act on its own."
Alan was as straightforward as he could be and sledgehammered his way to tell Quinn his current situation.
"Any solution?" asked Quinn. There was a lump in his throat that was threatening to break out.
"It's simple," Alan smiled. The usual smile that he always had. "You need to build it up like you did since you started learning magic. The connection has broken down, and you need to build it back up."
"You could have started to get your magic back the second it went out of control. I didn't need to come back here to help you out," Alan walked towards Quinn while speaking. "The only thing I can actually do to help is to make things easier."
"With your magic rampaging against you, it will be difficult for you to keep it under control." Alan took out a vial from his robes and showed it to Quinn.
"So the solution to all that is to numb down the magic. By giving you the magic dampening potion, we can level the field. By numbing your connection to your magic, we can make sure that you can work in a calm sea and not in a storm."
Quinn closed his eyes to hide the pain he was feeling. The question came out,
"I lost all my progress?"
Alan nodded and confirmed his fears. "Yes, you lost all your progress."
"But, I can regain it back?"
The question made Alan's eyes sparkle and widen his smile. The old Quinn was coming back, the Quinn who surprised him time after time. He could feel it.
"Yes, you can. You built a tower, and it broke down. You just need to build it again."
Quinn opened his eyes, and there was a glint in his eyes, "I will build a damn pyramid this time. Something that can't be broken down. Hell to it all if I am going to let something like this happen again."
"Excellent, that is the spirit, my child. You did it once, and you can do it again," Alan patted Quinn's shoulders and said, "Now, go meet your family. They had been worried sick since you came home. Go and assure them that everything is fine."
Quinn looked up at Alan and earnestly said, "Thank you for all of this."
Alan smiled but said nothing, prompting Quinn to walk outside the room to meet his family.
Just after he closed the door, Quinn looked down at his left hand, and immediately an orb of white light manifested above it. A simple, small, somewhat dim orb of light.
In the hallway, with no one else but Quinn.
He stared at the dim orb of light, which flickered as if it were almost about to go out. The intensity wavered every second. It would brighten for a moment but dim the next.
The light was weak, but it shone brightly in Quinn's eyes.
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- (Scene Break) -
.
Quinn emotionlessly stared at the vial that Alan had handed to him. It had been three days since Quinn had returned home, and his daily routine was to wake up, go out for a run, have breakfast, wait for Alan to arrive, and then drink the magic dampening potion to finally free himself from the binds of occlumency.
He looked up at Alan, who watched him, before opening the cork on the vial and downing the potion in one gulp. Quinn closed his eyes and felt the potion take its effects. As Quinn felt the magic dim down, his occlumency also weakened till he was no longer able to keep it operational.
It was a weird feeling, not having his mind operating with occlumency aid. He couldn't remember what it was like before he got the mind-aiding art. Right now, it just felt like there were drapes over his mind, stopping him from peeking inside.
"So, what do you want to talk about?" Quinn asked as he opened his eyes. He looked at Alan, who sat on a chair in front of him. A table in between them separated the young and the old.
"I am going to leave today," announced Alan. "I have nothing else to offer. Your grandfather has the recipe for the potion, and I am sure that he has potioneers at his disposal, so I am not really needed. Your magic is your problem, and no one but you can solve it."
Quinn crossed his legs before asking, "You could always help me out with the emotional-aspect of occlumency. I learned the other two aspects from you; how about making it a complete set of three?"
Alan chuckled as he refused, "I think it would be better if you learn it yourself. Your spoonfeeding days have passed. Learn it on your own: you already know how to disconnect emotions on different levels, so you have already started on the path; just keep going."
"You didn't spoon feed me anything," Quinn sounded miffed. He surprised Alan quite a bit, so Quinn did anything but being spoonfed knowledge.
"Whatever you say, kid," Alan chuckled before continuing on a serious note. "Before I go, I think this is the right time to address some issues."
Quinn furrowed his brows, uncertain, "Issues? You said that there was nothing wrong with me other than that I am the worst magic user in the world... For now, that is."
Alan gave one of those soft stares that Quinn was not used to when they came from Alan.
"What?" Quinn questioned, eyeing at his teacher.
"Quinn, we need to talk about the obliviation incident," Alan's voice was soft. He tried to make sure that Quinn was not threatened and felt as comfortable as he could.
Quinn froze on his barstool and stilled as he stared at Alan with vigilant eyes.
"That incident wasn't in the memories I gave you," Quinn glared at Alan, who showed no reaction at all to the glare.
"True, but a lot of times, patients hide things from their healers. You especially like to hold your cards close to your chest." Alan pointed at his temple and then pointed at Quinn. "You were in a dark state of mind when I first checked. Even though there is nothing physically or magically wrong with you, your mental health is still not at the level I consider healthy."
Quinn continued to glare at Alan for a solid minute before softening his glare. "Alright, let's talk about it." The harshness in the tone was still evident, even if it wasn't as pronounced as before.
"Let's get this clear, what you did was wrong," Alan came out strong without beating around the bush. This matter wasn't when Alan wanted to dance around the topic and bring Quinn to enlightenment.
"Of course, I know what I did was wrong," Quinn growled. "You don't think I know that? I erased a person's life, leaving them without an identity."
It was one of, if not Quinn's biggest, regret out of all the things Quinn did while under the influence of the curse.
"He was a prick, a fraud, and built his entire life by robbing people of their memories," Quinn clenched his hands and spat. "Despite all that, I still feel wrong about erasing his entire identity off of him."
He massaged his temples but couldn't meet the eye of his mind-arts teacher. Even if the fate of Lockhart was the same as canon, it didn't fit well with Quinn that he was the one to cause that fate.
"The reason I am bringing this up is that I have experienced something similar," said Alan, shocking and causing Quinn to look up towards his teacher.
It was the first time Quinn had seen such a somber expression on Alan's face. There was a haunting reminiscence in the mind-arts master.
"You see, when I was young... I was forty years old at that time. Making way into the field of the mind arts. I was well into my travels when I arrived in a country. I won't name names."
Quinn tried to imagine how a young Alan D. Baddeley would look like.
"It turned out that one of the ministry bigwigs there knew about me. He also held an interest in my work, so he offered me an opportunity. An opportunity that at that time interested me a bit too much." Alan looked Quinn straight in the eye and spoke in a grim voice. "He offered me dispensation to experiment on human subjects who were on death row."
Quinn sucked in a deep breath at that. There was nothing wrong with human trials if they were conducted properly, but with how the topic started made Quinn feel that this would not end well.
"It was a rare chance to ethically perform mind magic on humans. At that time, using the Killing curse to execute death row subjects was considered a normal practice. So me experimenting on people who were sentenced to death wasn't a moral dilemma either." Alan leaned back into his chair and stated, "So, as you might have guessed, I readily accepted. I took the opportunity to experiment on death row inmates with no restriction on the things I could do. I was given full reign on how to operate. I didn't even have to care about their health or well beings."
"So, I got six people to work with. Their fates before their death laid in my hands," A faraway look appeared in Alan's eyes as he continued. "I was so arrogant and full of myself at that time. I thought I couldn't do anything wrong, so I did whatever I wanted with the patients. I followed the protocol well because I was a professional in how I did things."
"The experiments went well. The six inmates were left all twitchy and with some tics because of the constant experimentation. I might have gone a little overboard, but there wasn't any permanent damage to any of them. But you see, during the experiments, a single thought plagued my mind."
Alan's gaze locked on Quinn as a self-mocking smile rose on his face.
"I thought, I have never actually seen what would happen if I went all out of someone's mind." Alan opened and closed his fist. "Mind-arts is a controlled art; it needs finesse and subtlety. So I never actually knew what the mind-arts could do if someone turned the dial all the way up. It was a professional curiosity that I shouldn't have tried to sate."
"So after thinking about it, I choose to use the Memory charm. I decided to use an unchecked Memory charm on one of the six people. To see what would happen, what would come out on the other side."
There was a long pause as Alan went silent, and Quinn watched without saying a word as the tension in the room built up.
"The result was that the inmate forgot everything. He forgot every single thing."
Alan tilted his head to the side and elaborated.
"Your guy just lost his identity, but he can still start a new life if he wanted. But, my guy? My guy forgot everything. He forgot his identity, his life experiences, and he forgot how to be a human. I ended up making him forget how to function as a human. I erased a human out of existence, and what I left behind was nothing better than a newborn baby."
Alan derisively laughed at himself. "The jailors thought I drove him mad. But they didn't understand. I hadn't driven him insane. No, I had erased a person out of existence. In a way, I had killed that inmate before the authorities executed him. It hit me a week after I had done it, and it took me time to get over it."
Quinn gulped as he heard Alan recount his story. He felt chills go down his spine as he found out the conclusion of the incident. It was laborious to erase Procedural memories because they were so deep-seated in a person.
Procedural memory was a part of the long-term memory responsible for knowing how to do things, also known as 'motor skills'. As the name implies, Procedural memory stores information on performing various procedures, such as walking, talking, and riding a bike.
Alan had erased everything that was learned through living. He had reverted the inmate back to a newborn state, who had just entered the world.
"Quinn, I don't know what you feel about obliviating your professor. I don't know if you feel guilty about it, or if you don't consider it your fault as it was done under the influence of the curse," Alan addressed Quinn after letting the story sink in Quinn's mind.
"But whatever it is, don't ignore it. Think about the incident and get some closure, whatever, to put this behind. I didn't get closure for a long time, and I don't want you to go through the same. So, just make sure that you have no lingering regrets about it," Alan tapped the table in between them, and Quinn felt the taps on his shoulders. "Believe me, it will do you good. Clear things when they are fresh. Don't put out things for later and work while the wound is still ripe."
Quinn nodded and got up when he saw Alan get up.
"Come, let's go out for a walk. The mood is too heavy for my liking," said Alan. His usual smile was back on his face.
"You should have seen it coming when you brought it up," replied Quinn.
Quinn didn't comment on the sudden change in Alan's mood. He was used to it, and he didn't understand how the mind of a person with Alan's level of occlumency worked.
The student and teacher, young and old, walked outside the room towards the garden.
"So, tell me more about this A.I.D thing of yours. What happened to laying low, not wanting to garner attention and all that jazz you talked about before you started school?"
"Oh, that. That plan went down the drain in a single year. But let's talk about you. What have you been doing for the past three years?"
"Hmm... Well, I met this beautiful lady whom I have been spending time with."
"Really? You dawg!"
.
- (Scene Break) -
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"Thank you, Polly, I will be fine from here," Quinn looked at the house-elf and thanked her. "I will call you when I am done."
"Will little master be alright? Polly worried that you get all hurt," asked the house-elf with worry in her big eyes. She knew what was wrong with Quinn and that he had taken a potion that weakened his magic.
"Don't worry, Polly. I will be fine. I will go in there, and when I come out, I will call for you," Quinn pointed at the building in front of him and smiled in comfort.
"... Okay, call Polly if in trouble," asserted the motherly house-elf before popping away back to the manor.
Quinn looked at the building; it was a red-bricked, condemned departmental store called Purge and Dowse Ltd. The departmental store was the magical gateway to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
The place had a shabby, miserable air; the window displays consisted of a few chipped dummies with wigs askew, standing at random and modeling fashions at least ten years out of date. Large signs on all the dusty doors read:
「CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT」
The hospital was placed here because no one could find a better place to house it. Everywhere in Diagon Alley was too small, so people came up with ideas to build it underground like the Ministry of Magic, but it was decided that underground was too unhealthy. Eventually, a muggle building was purchased so that patients could come and go and fit in with the crowds.
Quinn walked towards a window displaying nothing but a particularly ugly female dummy whose false eyelashes were hanging off and modeled a green nylon pinafore dress. He leaned close to the glass, looking up at the very ugly dummy and said,
"I am here to see Gilderoy Lockhart."
The dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned its jointed finger. Quinn took that as the signal and stepped into the building. Just like the barrier at King's Cross Station to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, he didn't crash into the building and arrived in a different place.
He was in what seemed to be a crowded reception area where rows of men and women sat upon rickety wooden chairs; some looking perfectly normal and perusing out-of-date copies of Witch Weekly. Others sported gruesome disfigurements such as elephant trunks or extra hands sticking out of their chests.
The room was scarcely less quiet than the street outside, for many of the patients were making very peculiar noises... people in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions and making notes on clipboards. Quinn noticed the emblem embroidered on their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.
Quinn ignored all the hustle and bustle of the area and just made his way into the hospital. He found the floor guide on a wall and found the place he was looking for.
「
SPELL DAMAGE ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Fourth Floor
(Unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, etc.)
」
He found the stairs and made his way to the fourth floor. It took some asking around, but he was able to find the right place. He stared at the double doors that marked the start of a corridor signposted:
「SPELL DAMAGE」.
He entered the corridor and looked around to find the ward, "Janus Thickey ward, Janus Thickey, Janus, ah, found it."
It was the ward for permanent spell damage. The door was locked. Quinn took a deep breath, and with a shaking hand, channeled all the bits and pieces of magic that he could muster and unlocked the locked door.
Gilderoy Lockhart sat in his bed. He had a quill in his hand and parchment in front of him. The man was scribbling on it with his tongue sticking out.
He knocked on the door, and Lockhart looked up.
"Yes," asked the man in hospital clothing.
Quinn walked towards the bed and sat on the armchair beside it.
"Good afternoon. My name is Quinn West."
Lockhart smiled and introduced himself, "A wonderful afternoon to you as well. My name is Gilderoy L-Lockhart. Do you want an autograph?"
Quinn smiled and nodded, "I would love to have an autograph."
"Alright, wait a minute. I am going to write up a good one. I am getting better at this."
"Sure, I will wait."
Quinn watched as the man drew on the parchment with his quill. He didn't feel much guilt about erasing Lockhart's memories. The man would have continued to steal credit from people if he got out of Hogwarts unharmed.
Then the time would come when Lockhart wouldn't be satisfied with his current level of fame, and it was inevitable with his personality that he would end up doing things much worse than what he did before.
So, in Quinn's mind, what happened was better for all because from what he remembered, Gilderoy was able to continue his work as an author, after a fashion, getting someone to help him write the book:
「Who Am I?」.
Quinn felt Lockhart got what he deserved. The only thing that irked Quinn was that he was the one to deliver that fate.
"Here you go, one autograph," said Lockhart, handing Quinn the parchment. "From me to Quinn West."
Quinn took the parchment and saw one decent-looking piece of calligraphy. He could see the flashes of Lockhart in there.
His hand went to the satchel he was carrying and took out a box and set it on the bed-top table in front of Lockhart.
"What is this?" asked Lockhart, excitement flashing in his eyes.
"A gift, Mr. Lockhart," replied Quinn, as he got up from his chair. "Please open it. It is all yours."
The man ripped open the box and took out a figurine.
"Oh! Isn't this me! How handsome am I."
Lockhart was so engrossed in the stuff in the box that he didn't notice that Quinn had left him long ago.
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-*-*-*-*-*-
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Quinn West - MC - A journey to regain magic.
Alan D. Baddeley - Mind-arts - Has made his share of mistakes.
Gilderoy Lockhart - Hospital patient - Recovering.
FictionOnlyReader - I lied, kind of - It will take two more chapters.
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-*-*-*-*-*-
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