29 29 Internal

It was a normal morning some days after the last girls visited Lucas in the infirmary. In the Gryffindor common room a bushy haired girl was nervously walking up and down, waiting for her best friend to finish her morning routine.

"Hermione, let's go" Holly said as she briskly walked past her friend towards the exit.

Hermione swiftly followed after her, wondering what she should do once they arrived at the hospital wing. After what felt like an eternity she stood before that doorless doorframe, looking into the small room, where the boy of her dreams lay. At least he had been the boy of her dreams up till recently.

As she looked at him she still did not know what she was supposed to do here, he was after all petrified and if she were to believe the books she had read, he wouldn't be able to perceive the outside world. According to other victims it is more like you blink and wake up somewhere else in the future. Almost like time travelling.

Holly seeing her stressed expression gently stroked her back and quietly spoke some words of encouragement. "Just look at this like it is a practice test for the real conversation, when he wakes up. He can't hear you and he can't use Legilimency on you, so you can freely speak your mind. You got this."

Bolstered by these words Hermione took one last deep breath and marched courageously into the room.

When she stepped through the door she stopped for a moment to see if anything would happen, as adviced by Holly. After a few seconds of nothing, she walked farther into the room, coming face to face with Lucas.

He looked into his brown normal-looking eyes and all the good memories they had together washed away any preparation she had done the last few days.

Overcome by nostalgia and longing she just looked at his peaceful face without saying a word.

Holly seeing this was a little puzzled and decided to come to help her. They had gone over the points Hermoine wanted to get off her chest and she knew her friend should have been confident enough to speak her mind.

But the moment Holly walked into that room it was clear why Hermione was hesitating. She was caught in the feeling she used to get when Lucas was using Legilimency on her, it was an automatic process at this point, showing how sinister he was towards her.

Holly without a second thought pulled out her wand and cast a shielding charm over Hermoine and herself.

*Tschhh*

It broke the moment it was hurriedly erected.

Now a little anxious and her normally green eyes taking on a shimmer of purple another far stronger shield was in place.

The bushy haired girl stared blankly into his eyes, while Holly's face flushed red out of embarrassment "Sorry, I should have checked beforehand."

"It's fine."

It was not.

You don't give an addict their substance of abuse and expect everything to be alright. Holly could only hope that it didn't do any further damage to Hermoine's psyche. "Keep it short, I didn't expect him to be this strong."

But now she was free to open her heart and say anything she wanted to say, without having to worry that he would play tricks on her mind.

"Lucas, I don't think I can be friends with you anymore. I have thought long and hard about it and as much as it pains me I don't see a way in which I could trust you again. I read up on what a Legilimency is and can do. It scares me. To think you were inside my head all these years without telling me. Even though Dumbledore said you had only good intentions, I just can't bring myself to trust you again. I'm sorry."

Both grils quickly made their way out of the room, where Holly cancelled her shielding charm panting a little bit out of exertion. She looked over to her friend, who had a somewhat lost expression. "You did well Hermoine, I'm proud of you."

——

Lucas pov, time?

'Now what?'

This was the big question. He presumedly had a few months till the end of the school year and not a lot to do. He couldn't train magic, because he didn't feel a connection to it. He also couldn't read any books he hadn't already read. But what really bummed him out was that he couldn't get his hands on any new books. "Magical Beasts and their Powers: Snakes", which Justin was supposed to get him and "An Introduction Into Wards" from Dean would need to wait until the end of the year. 'If only I could use Legilimency.'

'I wonder when I will get found and by who.'

'Meh, it doesn't matter. I am just another petrified victim after all.'

'But I might need to repair a few relationships, now that I take this life seriously. This life? What the hell am I thinking, of course this is my only life. Weird' As soon as the thought about his last life flashed through his mind, it disappeared, forgotten.

'Seriously, I need to apologize to Susan. She is my best shot at getting into the ministry. NO! What did I just say. Concentrate on the person not on their usefullness. She is my friend. Is she? Do I have friends? Oh god, this will be harder than I thought.'

'Come on, you can do this. I will deal with Susan after apologizing for my last outburst. OK that is done.'

'What about Hannah? Do I need to apologize to her as well? Not that I know of. Good. Next.'

'Tracey. I have not done anything to her. Next.'

'Holly. Can't really tell, I need to know what Hermoine thinks of me first. Do I need to say sorry to her. I mean, I already kind of did by undoing the Legilimency. So, no? Regardless, she will definetly come to me for a chat, it's just something she would do and Holly most likely will accompany her. Two birds with one stone, easy. Next.'

'Dean. Well the book I told him to read will be helpful to him as well, so I don't think I need to do anything. Next.'

'Justin. Same. Next.'

'Anyone else?'

'Wow, I really need to talk with more people and not just because they could be useful. Some actual social relationships would do me good…. But I can't do anything about that here.'

So with nothing to do Lucas spent his days wandering around or reliving days to weeks of his life, mostly focused on his mom.

----

An indeterminable time later.

'It's sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring.' Lucas has been waiting for an estimated two months already. 'At least before I had someone to talk to.'

Lately he began exploring the all encompassing darkness looming at the edge of his mindscape. He always felt there was more to it, but in "The Mind Arts" he didn't find an answer. It only said that it was the boundary of the mind and dissuaded anyone from going too far, because there was nothing beyond.

Although he was careful and took the books warning to heart, being out there felt weirdly comfortable, it helped him cope. Whenever he was there he didn't feel like he was imprisoned in his own mind.

Sometimes, when he stayed in there for possibly days.

And on one fateful day he had an epiphany, what if he did the same thing he learned from the book about shadows here?

Would it even work?

'What could go wrong?' he thought naively, having learned nothing from the last time.

So Lucas sat down comfortably and started the meditative process. He kept his eyes open to at least see if anything goes wrong.

Which turned out to be a live saver, because the moment he separated himself, his mindscape was plunged into darkness like someone had drowned it in pitch black ink.

At the same time he felt his emotions dampen to a dangerous low level, not yet to the level the outside Lucas had been but it was getting close.

He felt his happiness, sadness, love, ambition and so much more slowly drowning in a sea of cold indifference. His books, which meant everything to him, turned black one after the other, the darkness had fused into them.

But there were a few pages that turned golden, outshining the gloomy atmosphere, like a brilliant star in the night sky stubbornly refusing to go out.

"I'm proud of you sweety"

"You're the best son I could have ever hoped for!"

"I love you."

"Look at the colosseum! Isn't it beautiful!…"

"…just let it all out, you will feel better afterwards."

"…Now add some milk and stir until it gets clumpy..."

"…Enjoy your school year."

"Your father would be proud."

"Yeah, yeah my little genius…"

"… you're the best."

…

It was his mother.

It was all the little precious memories he had shared with her over the years.

She helped him keep his sanity and showed him a way out, a way to push back, but not before he felt a strange pull, persuading him to go deeper, embracing the darkness.

Lucas decided it was for the better to return to the daylight, lest he did something he would regret forever.

Guided by his mothers warm words the ink retreated back to the edges of his mindscape. Lucas sprinted inside his library and hastily opened the first book he could get his hands on and he watched the writing reappearing.

"*Sigh*, thank god." Lucas murmured. "But what was that feeling?"

——

A lot of time has passed since then and Lucas once again separated himself, but this time a sphere of shining words covered his mindscape, keeping the ink at bay.

In his hand was a smaller even brighter shpere made out of only one sentence. "I love you."

It was all he needed to find his way back and traverse deeper into the blackness, pursuing the feeling he had felt that day. With his makeshift lantern in hand he set off into the unknown.

Absolute darkness was all that greeted him for ?¿hours¿? on end. It was hard keeping track of time in there, harder than it already was back in the clear.

Eventually he saw a flicker of light on the horizon.

Now with a clear direction he quickened his pace and after a while stood before a large building,

'What is a hospital doing here?'

That's right, in the middle of this all encompassing darkness stood a lonely building in a clearing, isolated from everything.

'It's strange, somehow similar to my own mind. Almost like ... . No, it can't be.' Lucas rushed to the entrance door, where he was met with little resistance. He harshly ripped open the doors and made his way inside, where he confirmed his suspicion. He was in someone else's mindscape.

'Is this Madam Pomfrey's mind? It has to be.'

He was right, somehow he overcame the one restriction Legilimency had that held it back from becoming the most frightening magic of all. He invaded her mind without eye-contact.

That was not what was important to Lucas at the moment, his first thought was about all the medical knowledge she had and whether she knew of any cure for his mothers scars. If someone knew it then it had to be her, she was constantly surrounded by young wizards, who stumble into any and all magical accidents possible.

It was also the one person he had made an exception to his rule of not going too deep into someone's mind. He needed to know everything that could be helpful and if it meant crossing a few ethic boundaries then so be it.

He wasn't interested in her love life or her early childhood, she could keep those memories, but everything concerning medicine he had to have, it didn't matter if she swore an oath of privacy or was trying to bury certain events. He would break down any wall he would need to get what he wanted.

But what Lucas didn't expect was getting thrown out of her mind after a few minutes and landing back in the darkness, with her mind totally gone. Not a single sign of her anywhere. With no other option, but to lament the shortness of his stay he went back to his own mindscape.

He was barely able to scratch the surface of her medical knowledge. What he had gotten would only amount to a first aid course.

'Not enough!'