310 The Second Coming of Balbh

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Damon's eyes followed his father's past self's falling body after being hit by his father's spell and flinched when the thump sounded in the room. He turned to his father, his eyes threatening to bulge out.

"What was that about?" he asked.

Future-Quinn raised his younger self's body and floated him into the seat Quinn had just vacated. Ropes sprung out from the wooden chair and wrapped around Quinn's arms, legs, and torso, securing him upright to the chair.

"Are you going to Obliviate him?"

Future-Quinn gazed at unconscious Quinn, all the fun and smiles gone from his face, and all that remained was a look of rumination. Damon observed his father's face, and he couldn't remember the last time he had seen him look like that— sure, there were many times he had seen his father contemplative while working, but this was the first time it was like this.

"Us coming here revealed a lot about the future he shouldn't know, and I myself revealed a lot about the future to him," future-Quinn broke the silence. "Time travel is complicated, especially what we're doing. For us to return home safely, I couldn't allow him to retain memories of what he had retained here. It would've been all dandy for him, but we would've a lot of problems back home."

Future-Quinn turned away from Quinn to a painting on the wall. He raised his hand for the sticking charm to come undone and the painting to float in front of him.

"Um, what are you doing?" asked Damon with an uncertain tone.

With a snap of his fingers, future-Quinn disassembled the frame and moved them away in the air, leaving behind the artwork floating in front of him.

"The moment we entered the office, he knew there was a possibility that his memory might be tampered with, so he took measures against it," said future-Quinn, half-chuckling.

Damon stepped closer to his father, and his eyes widened when he saw the canvas flip. Written in tiny black letters were lines upon lines of words, stretching from one corner of the canvas to the other, spanning across the length. He stepped ever closer and leaned forward to take a better look and recognized the context of the sentences through keywords.

"H-He wrote everything down?!" Damon said, sputtering, his eyes swarming between the canvas, his father, and the unconscious teenager.

"Of course, why wouldn't he?" said future-Quinn, matter-of-factly. "When you meet someone from the future, it is beneficial that you somehow write it down . . . . I know him— he wouldn't have written anything in open view, so he wrote it down on the back of the painting.

There isn't any disadvantage for him because there isn't going to be any damage to his timeline, but because we decided to share the knowledge of the future, we have invited danger to our own timeline— and if we left him like this, our world would've changed quite a lot."

"But, but, if he knew there was a chance that his memory would be exchanged, then how would he remember that he has everything written down behind the painting?"

Future-Quinn swept his hand over the back of the canvas, and the words disappeared, leaving behind the clean canvas as it was before. Then he turned the canvas to the front to show the painting.

"This was painted by your Aunt Luna. Half of the artwork in this room was made by Luna." Future-Quinn pointed at the dismantled frame floating in the air. "However, this frame is special as she'd replace the painting in it every few months to keep the office— as she used to say— peppy. He knew that when Luna would remove the painting, she would notice the writing on the back that she clearly didn't write. He even made sure that Luna would come to him with the painting by telling her in the first line."

Damon's jaw slackened as he looked at Quinn. They were the same age; how could he think all of this while all the crazy was happening.

"But, he's prideful in his skill with magic," said future-Quinn, scoffing with what sounded like self-deprecation. "He didn't think I would be able to sense him use magic. What a fool. How did he think that — I — wouldn't be able to sense — him — use magic."

The frame on the painting came back together, and the assembled artwork was once again sent to the wall, fixed with a sticking charm. As if it had never been removed.

"I have a question," said Damon— there was something that bothered him. "If you were going to erase his memories, why would you spend the time to tell him so much?"

"The Time-Turner you have is nowhere near perfect, and you were a bigger fool to use it without knowing anything about it," a stern voice reprimanded Damon. "The device leaves the streams of time in disarray, and the steams connecting here to our home is distorted and traveling through that is dangerous and unstable— one could even get lost in the stream of time, never to exit the steams to any single point in time.

It didn't help that in a hurry, I worsened the distortion just so that I could catch up to you."

Damon's head flinched back, and his posture collapsed. Future-Quinn noticed the change in his son and slapped him on the back.

"Don't worry your foolish head about it; I would've reached you one way or another."

Damon nodded with his head down before he recalled his initial question. "But if you were looking to pass the time, you could've obliviated him right off the bat. That would've eliminated the risk of him not writing things down."

There was a pause.

". . . It might not look like it, but he's going through a difficult time right now," said future-Quinn, gazing at his unconscious self. "He's struggling with himself and a lot of things around him. He has a plan for everything till Hogwarts because he knew what was going to happen, but after that, it's a blank slate, he doesn't know what lies beyond it— and that scares him a lot . . . and I thought that talking to him would maybe alleviate some of his worries about the future— it's quite a frightening time for him . . . ."

Damon gazed at his father and then at Quinn. He lowered his chin to his chest. He had not only added to Quinn when he was having a tough time but also had dug up memories of those times in his father.

". . . But with his memories erased, won't it all be useless," Damon asked.

"Let me tell you a story, Damon," said future-Quinn, making Damon look up in surprise.

"Once, there were two people— Balbh and Dolion. Dolion was Balbh's maternal uncle, but they weren't close to each other as Balbh wasn't close to his mother's family, and thus he hadn't met Dolion until quite a while when Dolion's family invited Balbh to their home. Dolion's family truly wanted to meet Balbh and get to know him better— however, not all was good in the story. While Dolion's family had pleasant intentions, Dolion himself didn't follow the same motive. He had other plans for Balbh. Dolion wanted to manipulate Balbh for his own benefit."

He turned to Damon and asked, "How do you think Dolion planned to accomplish that?"

Damon thought for a moment before he shook his head. "There are a lot of ways to accomplish it; however, with just what you have given me, I don't think I can give you a single choice."

"Good child," Future-Quinn chuckled. "Yes, there can be many ways one can accomplish manipulation . . . However, Dolion had in his hands a method that was essentially a sure way to manipulate to no end. One thing I haven't told you about dear Dolion is that he was a natural Legilimens."

"A natural Legelimens!" Damon gasped. "He was aiming to use mind magic to manipulate Balbh?"

"Indeed. But don't be surprised just yet. Dolion, with his natural talent, had accomplished something that even the more skilled Legelimens with a wealth of experience found tremendously difficult to achieve— he had found a way to exert complete control over a person . . . he had created a mind magic that would turn the target into a puppet, something worse than the Imperius Curse, with no hope of ever recovering."

Damon gulped. "Did this Dolion use that spell on Balbh?"

"Yes, he did. Dolion got close to Balbh to drop his guard and gain his confidence. When he thought he was close enough, Dolion drugged Balbh so that he could cast the spell without any problems . . .

But Dolion, like many in his position, was blinded by arrogance, drunk on his power, he had underestimated Balbh."

Damon listened intently.

"Balbh, while not a natural, was a Leglimens. A skilled one at that. He was always suspicious of Dolion, and so even with Dolion trying to become closer to him, Balbh never put his guard down and just pretended to be friendly. So when Dolion finally made his move, Balbh was ready— he took care of the drug he was fed and turned the tables on Dolion.

Not only that, he trumped Dolion in his own game— Legilimency."

"But, wasn't Dolion a natural Legilimens? Then how . . ."

"True," nodded future-Quinn, "Dolion had immense potential; he could've been great and could've garnered people's admiration just like my own mind magic master, who was a dual natural Legilimens and Occlumency. But, unlike my master and Balbh, he wasn't hardworking and simply depended on his talent and put in no work to improve his craft.

That allowed Balbh to be triumphant. And this is where things got interesting."

"Interesting, how?" asked Damon.

"You see, Balbh decided that he was going to exact some revenge and deal down some punishment on his own. So, Balbh decided to erase Dolion's memories of not only their interactions, but he also went further down the line and began cleaning out experiences that made up some aspects of Dolion's personality.

Now, if Balbh had left it there, Dolion's mind would've filled the gaps on his own with suitable memories that would've been compatible with Dolion. But Balbh didn't stop there. He interjected into that process and started dropping suggestions on every blank spot— suggestions that went against Dolion's original experiences. He had learned of Dolion's likes and dislikes during their time together, so he knew what to plant that'd make . . . Dolion less Dolion.

When Balbh was done, he had planted enough suggestions that with time, Dolion would change away from his original personality. Of course, the results weren't as perfect as Balbh had expected, but he had indeed 'modified' the Dolion into something different— in a way, it was similar to what Dolion had wanted to do him."

Future-Quinn turned to Quinn and spoke, "I'm going to do the same to him—."

"What?!" Damon all but shouted out of shock. "!! But that—!"

"Listen, first. I swear kids these days are in such a hurry," future-Quinn sighed. "I'm not going to change his personality. What I am going to do is to follow the same procedure that Balbh implemented and go into his memories and plant suggestions that'd create a certain effect I am aiming for."

"What kind of effect?"

"He'd interpret them as gut feelings, hunches, intuition. There are a few things he needs to sort out, so I'm going to try to guide him into directions and choices that'd be beneficial to him," said future-Quinn before sighing. "I'm crossing the one line I know I shouldn't cross, but it is for his own good." He chuckled, "If he ever found what I did to him, which he isn't going to, he'd be mighty pissed at me— he might even make it his mission to hunt us down just so that he could fight me."

"How are you so sure that he'd never find out," asked Damon. "Also, didn't you say that in Balbh and Dolion's case, the result wasn't as Balbh had expected."

"Dolion never found out because his skill overshadowed by Balbh. Even if Dolion got better, it'd been too late as his mind would've assimilated those suggestions as its own creations. And the reason why the result wasn't exactly the same as Balbh had desired was that the skill difference wasn't big enough, and Balbh himself wasn't skilled enough," said future-Quinn.

He looked at his son and raised his chin, and spoke with confidence flooding out from his tongue. "I don't overshadow him in skill," he pointed at Quinn, "I dwarf him in skill. Not only will he never find out, but my magic will also bloom into the exact result that I want. After all, I have forty years on Balbh when he cast the magic on Dolion."

"Now, step aside and observe as I show you something spectacular," said future-Quinn as magic obeyed his command.

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Quinn stepped out of the Guide's Vault and stretched his hands over his head. Even though the vault was complete and ready to be used, there were still a few things that he thought could be smoothened out. It was crucial that the vaults remained functioning for years to come because he didn't know when he would return to Hogwarts in the future, and that is if he ever returned; as such, ensuring that none of his casted magic would fizzle out for quite some time.

'Well, with time, Hogwarts would assimilate the vault into its ecosystem,' he thought.

"I wonder how the magic would change," Quinn muttered to himself, interested in how Hogwarts would affect his magic. "Maybe a visit to Hogwarts, a couple decades from now, is warranted."

Quinn slipped his hands into his pocket and retrieved his trusty piece of reinforced off-white cloth, magically converted into the Hogwarts-exclusive artifact known as RECON, the massively upgraded version of the Marauder's Map. It was the state-of-art solution to all Hogwarts-related stalking and the key to almost all doors in Hogwarts castle.

"Let's see. . . the path is clear. The train is going to leave for slumber town in . . . right about now," Quinn sighed with a smile; for some reason, he felt like there was a spring in his step, and all the tension and stress accumulated because of the Sin curse had been drained clean of him.

He checked his soulspace, "Well, it's still there . . . ."

There was a long silence as Quinn stared at his soulscape and the infestation of the Sin curse.

". . . I should take care of this as soon as possible," he muttered to himself— something told him that the faster he got rid of it, the better it'd be.

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Quinn West - MC(Present) - Suffered an unknown betrayal.

Quinn West - MC(Future) - Hope we never meet again.

Damon West - Future West - Dreading what's waiting for him back home.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - Took inspiration from The Second Coming of Gluttony's FIRST chapter. I have yet to read beyond that.

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The link is in the synopsis!