Harry Potter : Chapter 34: Wit Beyond Measure I
The place I was standing in was defined by an odorless, grey smoke that behaved almost but not quite like mist, clinging to itself while I realized that there was no floor, no ceilings and no walls surrounding me.
And yet I stood.
I turned around slowly, the absolute silence almost ringing with gravitas in my ears as I tried to understand the nature of what I was witnessing.
After recovering the diadem and hiding my tracks, I had raced back to my home, occasionally deviating from my planned chain of Apparitions in order to follow the whims of the Felix Felicis before its benefic effects faded completely from my system.
"Where the hell...?"
I had returned home and emptied my pockets and traveling sack, only to sit in my enlarged armchair and...
"I am in the Diadem?" I remembered placing the enchanted artefact over my brow before trying to discover how to use it, if it indeed could be used for something.
"Well done!" a familiar voice sounded out of the smoke, and as I turned, I immediately stiffened: walking towards me throughout the shapeless surroundings there was a man-shaped after my current self, but where I had dark eyes.
His were of the same blue of the sapphire held by the Raven in front of the Diadem, and they shone just as coldly.
"What the hell..." I started to ask, only for that strange alter ego to stop a few steps from me.
He had black hair that reached his shoulders, he wore a simple white shirt tucked into brown pants that ended at is calves, while his feet were bare and mostly hidden by the grey, shapeless mist that seemed to define our surroundings.
"You'll need to actually start using that thing between your ears, if you have any hope of getting an actual use out of me." the man that most certainly wasn't me spoke merrily, but he waved a meaty finger in a threatening motion in my direction.
The warning enlightened me to the only possibility: "We're in my head, and you're the Diadem... magic?"
"A thousand years do a lot to change the meaning of the words, but you already know what," the Other-Me gestured around the empty room.
"this is a consequence of wearing the Diadem, if you look around, you'll get it."
I simply looked once again, trying to find meaning in the smoky shapes that seemed to hover just beyond the reach of my focus, but to no avail.
"So," I tried, "you're sentient?" I frowned, my mind immediately going to the practice of horcruxes, but no, that wouldn't have made sense: Voldemort couldn't turn a soul anchor of another into one for himself, that simply wasn't how that particular magic worked.
"I'm not a horcrux." the reflection of myself actually laughed, "The only things I know beyond your own well of knowledge are relative to the purpose and function of the diadem itself, and that is because I am, somewhat, the diadem itself."
"What?" the word slipped past my lips almost without my consent, because while on one hand it was nice to be on the right track, on the otther I really had no idea what to expect from the situation.
"Surely you can realize it on your own, can't you?" my copy openly mocked me, making me grit my teeth in annoyance.
I expected a trove of secret knowledge, maybe a memory of Rowena's accomplishments, but this... Apparently, my curiosity wasn't going to be satisfied, for all of his professing of being part of the Diadem, he didn't answer clearly to my questions.
Almost as if...
"There you are!" reflection-me crowed, clapping loudly in the hollow place in which we were having our conversation.
"You are helping me figure out things?" I tried, "But without giving me the answers directly."
"The path to knowledge enriches with every step, even when there is nothing at the end of the road." not-me coaxed me to go on, the actual function of the diadem becoming clearer and clearer with each second.
"Intelligence cannot be actually defined, something that aleatory... there is no easy symbol for it either," I returned with my mind to all I knew about enchantments and rituals that could power up magic or wards or anything that was meant as an adaptive piece of magic.
"and you're presenting yourself as a reflection of me, albeit with sapphire-blue eyes... you're a wall for me to bounce off my ideas, scaled off to eleven, aren't you?"
"And what does one reaches by confronting oneself?" reflection-me wondered, his smile widening impossibly over his features.
"I aid your learning, as you've already discovered, but what does my existence symbolize, given that I'm the product of the enchantments of Rowena Ravenclaw?"
"Wisdom through opposition?" I frowned, trying to put into words my suspects, only for the Other-Me to shrug unhelpfully.
"Wit Beyond Measure..." he taunted me, awaiting an actual attempt on my part before he committed to an answer.
"Knowledge is power," my copy rolled his shoulders as he studied the meaningless smoke surrounding us.
"that is a gross oversimplification: the application of the implications of knowledge can generate power, but power without direction is a tool for the truly wise, and the wise become so through experience, which is another word that expresses knowledge of both one's own self and the outside reality."
While I tried to untangle the knowingly twisted sentence that my copy had delivered, I could already feel a powerful migraine start at the base of my temples.
"You decided to change the world for the better, and yet you didn't touch Riddle." Mirror Me pointed out, changing the topic as if he was deliberately trying to provoke me. Which, to be fair, could very well be the truth.
"You choose greatness more out of fear of irrelevance than out of a sense of duty." my Other-Self took another step forward, almost poking me in the chest in an aggressive manner that was discordant with his calm tone.
I grimaced at the words that summed up that recurrent doubt I had, in a manner much more brutal than the one I felt I deserved, but Other-Me wasn't done yet.
"When magic is involved, lying to yourself can become crippling."
"And the Diadem's magic is set to hammer into my head my own doubts and fears?" I frowned as I still tried to figure out what the hell the Diadem was supposed to be doing.
"Truth frees the mind." Mirror-Me tilted his head in a way that I hoped wasn't mimicking my actions when I was intrigued about something, and spoke again.
"You want the greatness, you want pure creation, you want to be the One capable of feats others wouldn't even be able to dream about."
"I know that already." I waved a hand dismissively, but there was no levity in my voice, I could tell that the self that the Diadem had shaped was trying to make a point.
"Do you?" the annoying me that the Diadem had created questioned me with a mocking tilt to his voice, "From what I see," and his eyes flashed sapphire blue as he spoke.
"you still act as if you wish for greatness is something evil onto itself, something that must be turned towards the bettering of the world in every detail, treading carefully.
A single step away from murdering a kid that you know only as of the one that is going to bring years of guerrilla to the United Kingdom far in the future, despite the great strides you've been able to take in wanded subjects thanks to his prodding."
I frowned distastefully at the last comment.
"I would have managed even without him."
I was a bloody adult that had seen a lot of sci-fi, manga and whatnot, I had more ideas rolling in my head about what I could use magic for than anyone else, and even if I had exploited Tom Riddle a little, that didn't take anything away from my innovative approach, nor from my results.
"And yet, as soon as you could, you hid Magic Most Evile and Secrets of the Darkest Arts, along with the book on rituals."
"Well," I snorted disdainfully as I crossed my arms, "forgive me if I feel like that choice is one of the few correct ones that I've taken this far."
"A choice made out of fear," Other-Me smiled mirthlessly, "something to cripple the growth of the one you fear to see as Lord Voldemort."
My fists tightened over my arms as I remained silent, there was nothing to say on that particular topic, Riddle had to be killed eventually, I knew that even if I had chosen to wait to see if my influence had been enough to push him in another direction.
"A kingdom should be fit for its ruler." the shape that the Diadem had created with my features took a quiet step forward, his blue eyes shining coldly in the smoky room around us.
"If you want to kill him, out of fear for something that could never come to pass, then do so," he shrugged, clearly expressing how he couldn't care less about it.
"but if you intend to use him as a bouncing board, you'll have to allow him to do the same: keep for yourself the ideas personally tailored for you, but if you truly wish to be the best you can, without a doubt Riddle's presence in your life, either as an equal or an opposite, will be a great boon."
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