Memory slime

Gaude still had a few matters to discuss with Dorne, so he spoke with a devious smirk: "Do you mind giving Mary and Lucien to me for a bit? There are still quite a few things I'm curious about when it comes to vampires."

Dorne replied solemnly: "I think it's best that they're out of the castle. I can't guarantee that they will carry out their sentence to its full extent otherwise."

"Understood. It should be fine as long as they stay alive, right?"

"Yes, but it's best we don't discuss this matter any longer. It would be a shame if something were to happen to them due to a failed escape attempt, however."

After ironing out the details of the future jolly cooperation between the two forces, Gaude returned to the his very own private military base, where the patients had finally been un-hooked and fed enough blood to keep them under.

Gaude had gained a lot more confidence in his mind magic – partly due to digging up a few more tomes on the matter from the library of Grant Vywin's house (tomes he had not encountered in any of the bookstores, including those on Knockturn Alley), and partly due to all the practice he got in with the captive Death Eaters. Alive and well was more of a physical condition apparently, some mental scarring here and there hadn't triggered any backlash from the unbreakable vow on Gaude's side. That Amycus Carrow, he wasn't using his head much anyway, so becoming a complete vegetable couldn't have been much of a loss on his side.

A walk and house elves doing logistics work later, Gaude was standing next to an agitated Mary Sanguini strapped to a stainless-steel table. He spoke in a slow, deep and relaxing voice, wearing the guise of Heisenberg: "Pain. It is such a unique thing. It can only exist within a living nervous system, nowhere else. Did you know that there is a popular understanding according to which you cannot re-experience the physical pain when reviewing your memories?

It is said to be because the brain doesn't have a way to store the sensation of pain in the first place. Of course, most of the time remembering exactly how painful something is would be a waste of valuable memory space, but let's do a little experiment.

. Let's see if we can prove the widespread understanding wrong. Now, keep in mind, you'll have to try and remember the pain in as much detail as possible."

Mary begun struggling and muffled screams could be heard from her gag, but that wouldn't be removed until test number eleven, when Gaude would start needing some form of input from her. Gaude started Beethoven's ninth symphony, since it felt somehow perfect for the occasion.

Gaude proceeded to use pieces of cloth infused with various concentrations of garlic solution, as he had already found out that garlic can cause a great deal of pain to a vampire, much more so than any pepper he could find. His first test subjects had been tough street thugs, but a delicate little princess like Mary? Gaude was sure he'd get honest responses out of her.

During the first movement, Gaude used the masculine melody perform the tests and the feminine melody to ask for Mary's opinion on the level of pain, assign a number to the test and ask her how it compared to the previous one. In his previous life, Gaude had difficulty with managing his words without having to tune down the music occasionally, but he also had enough practice with the nine symphonies to perfect his timing. Gaude healed any damage that was caused by the test, after all, using the exact same spot in the exact same condition would give the most accurate results.

For best defined results, he picked the most sensitive area identified through extensive testing that involved near-constant linkage to her mind. For an undeveloped body like Gaude's, her nakedness had no effect, allowing him to fully concentrate on the experiment.

After test number twelve, Gaude said with an aggrieved tone: "Mary, you're being uncooperative. You know as well as I do that cursing at me will get us nowhere, and I'll have to keep this up until you start giving me the right kind of answers."

However, all he got as a reply was a whole lot of swearing that could make a Russian sailor proud. Gaude sighed, and since the time for conversation had come to an end, picked a piece of cloth from one of the numbered infusion jars. He pressed it onto the designated spot just as the violins gave their all and lifted it after exactly three seconds had passed.

Naturally, Gaude didn't rely only on verbal communication to get the necessary information out of her, the mind link was still active and he was experiencing a form of every bit of pain with her, in an attenuated and second-hand manner. The verbal communication served multiple purposes: to keep the subject conscious, focused on the task and oblivious to the Legilimency. If he didn't do at least that much, his actions would've become plain torture instead of science.

He waited for the melody to change and before removing the gag from her, asked: "What number do you think this was?"

Mary glared at Gaude, which required her trying her best to raise her restrained head and looking way down as she said: "How the fuck should I know? You're just a pig like any other man, stick it in and be done with it already!"

Gaude smirked at that as he replied: "Good girl, using your words is progress. Since you've forgotten, let's introduce you the entire series again. Don't worry, I'll go slow this time so you can really feel it."

This time, Gaude started from the highest concentration and worked his way down, giving Mary ample time to recover after each sample, or at least however much she could. Her mind started to get a little bit out of order. The memory they were making together was exhibiting unusual behavior, reaching out to those close to it like an amoeba. Gaude understood well what was happening – consciously or subconsciously, Mary was trying to use recent stimulating and relatively happier memories to disconnect from the present moment and the pain.

Time passed rather quickly, and after the fourth and fifth symphony, Gaude lost the mental link with Mary he had been keeping up so far.

Gaude walked to her head, and after prying the unconscious vampiress' eyes open, entered her mind. To say it was a mess would've been an understatement. Normally in Gaude's view, people's memories were nice and tidy balls of data with a few or many connections interlinking them.

Not this time – this time, he felt like he had stepped into a puddle of goo, with everything apparently melted down and thrown together. He hadn't really paid too much attention to what was going on inside her head, getting a bit carried away with the experiment. He wanted something better to write down in the report than 'inconclusive'. But, like all good things, it had come to an end.

Once he entered her mind, he discovered himself within a puddle of slime-like substance, quite unpleasant and filled with various colors and broken-down images.

It was only a fair distance away that he could see the familiar structures. It didn't take a genius to figure out that getting carried away with science can cause some serious and permanent psychological damage.

Exerting his will, Gaude first formed a blade, severing all the connections leading to the puddle of slime, leaving the partially gooyfied structures behind for later experimentation, gathered the goo of broken-down memories and mental processes and wrapped it into a nice and tidy ball, around the size of his fist.

Due to Gaude being careful not to cut the wrong connection, he had been highly concentrated the entire time, causing him to spend well over three hours inside Mary's broken mind. Once he was done, he had a whole new appreciation for doctors who would pull a double shift to perform a complicated operation from start to end.

He extracted it from the vampiress' head, and once it was outside, he put it into a pensieve – those had become a standard tool for sharing combat experience and improving strategies for future battles, at least among the magically inclined members of his small army. Pensieves were also standard equipment in all of Gaude's research teams since a memory conveyed even details that any member of the team may have missed.

Pandora, Snape and a few Artificers were encouraged to spend their downtime on figuring out a way to allow his non-magically inclined troops to access the memories as well, but so far, there hadn't been much progress on that.

The pensieve carrying something that was never meant to be put in it, started sparking and spewing smoke, before bursting into flames. Gaude cast spells that he hoped would stabilize it non-stop, but when it looked like the pensieve was about to do something even worse, he quickly vanished it.

'Well, that just happened. I guess I'll need something stronger for containment, if I want to store some samples for study.'

Gaude ended up swapping for Charles Vywin looks, taking a little detour to the lab complex and gathering all the respective heads of departments – except magizoology and herbology – and said: "I've discovered a unique thing, I guess, inside the consciousness of a torture victim. So far, I've discovered that a pensieve doesn't react too well to containing that thing.

I'm putting the Muggle pensieve access project on hold, along with any other pending projects. It's time to put your big brains together and figure out a container that can hold it. I'll leave you a copy of the memory of my experience with it. If you have any further tests you want to do, I have quite a few patients awaiting the procedure. I'll just hold off on extraction until you've come up with something." Naturally, that copy of memory wasn't going to contain the process of creating the object of study. Gaude wasn't one to create unnecessary complications.

After the memory had been reviewed and the small gathering had almost completely dispersed, Gaude discovered that he was left alone in the room with a certain black-haired youth, who had finally learned the use of shampoo. It was either that or he had once again fallen victim to a personal hygiene checkpoint, a magic array that forcibly cast cleaning spells on everyone it considered unclean.

Gaude was about eighty percent certain of what the question would be, so he said: "Yes, Snape, project Phoenix too. It's not as urgent as the current matter, as I'm not sure when I'd even need it."

Snape, however, said in a grim tone: "It's not that, Sir. Saphorey from Herbology has been rather impolite lately. I would appreciate it if you have a word with him."

It took the strength of all of Gaude's willpower to not roll his eyes when he said: "My god, Snape. I thought you already developed and drank the potion to finally have your balls drop? Should I give you a special project to develop a potion to have them grow in size too? I believe you're perfectly capable of giving worse than you're getting, just spare a thought during the transition between matters concerning research and the woman you'll never get to figure out a good comeback."

Snape marched out of the door with a frown, but still took care to close it quietly. However, the clack of the knob being forcibly returned to its position echoed through the room, giving testimony to the fact that he was quite livid.

From the corridor, Gaude could hear a voice speaking in a mock cutesy manner: "Aww, look, it's little Snake! Were you hissing up to your master again?"

After that, Gaude could hear hurried footsteps rushing off from the scene.

Another voice could be heard: "Are the fire safety enchantments on the fritz again? Because I haven't seen a burn like that for years!"

'Looks like today is not the day either. All he had to do was say he was discussing a project and being productive, unlike those guys. They know as well as he does the value of contribution points. The best system ever invented to keep people in line.'

Gaude quickly forgot about that matter, however. Instead, he went through everything he had learned about mind magic once more, hoping that he had missed something obvious. However, after half an hour, he came up empty.

Instead, Gaude once more assumed the illusory overlay of Heisenberg, returned to the backup specimen and started with the same series of tests. After all, the greater the sample size, the more accurate the conclusions.

After six hours, Gaude once again picked up a clipboard that contained one filled in page:

Subject no. 002

name: Lucien Sanguini

species: Homo Sapiens Sapiens Hemovorus aka pureblood vampire

age: 53

physical condition: average for the species (for more details, review memory copy LHSX-0024.002.01 for detailed inspection)

Mental condition: displays unusually high concern towards subject 001 of the same experiment. Otherwise, within normal parameters for the species. Notable deviations: highly-developed sister complex and sexual attraction towards her. (for more details, review memory copy LHSX-0024.002.02; caution is advised as the copy contains a copy of the subject's mind reaching back for one year.)

That was all for the first page.

On the second page, he wrote:

Subject's repetition count greatly improved compared to subject 001. Due to subject 001's anatomical differences, the data comparison results are likely to be inaccurate.

Measures taken: frequent monitoring of the fine mental structures, followed by reprieve once breakdown acceleration was detected. Verbal communication from the experimenter's side and removing the gag to allow the uttering of profanities from the subject's side appear to slow down the breakdown of fine structures. Oral administration of blood appears to cause marginal amounts of recovery.

Subject proved unable to consistently make correct comparisons between past and present pain levels, however, the overall accuracy was fifteen percent greater than subject 001. No trend between the frequency of correct statements and the progression of the test series was found. (for more details, review memory copy LHSX-0024.002.03; mental preparation for creative use of profanities is recommended. Those sensitive to matters regarding their mother are recommended to rely on a second-hand account instead.)

Experiment suspended due to lack of a suitable container for the broken-down portion of subject's mind for further study.

Once Gaude was finished with his two test subjects and had them temporarily hooked up to life support, he moved on to inspecting the minds of those tortured by the duo.

One thing he did notice was that the extent of the damage seemed different. Comparing the last intact memories, he found out that so far, the best of them had only lost only a few months' worth of memories while the worst case had lost over a century. In any case, their losses were much greater than those of Lucien and Mary, induced by a mere few hours of torture.

Intrigued about his discovery, Gaude went on to the next one, a burly male that looked to be in his thirties. Gaude felt something off about him, but figured it wouldn't be much worse than what he'd seen before.

After the usual entry procedures, he found himself in a sea of pulsing lights that seemed to flow into each other through flexible tendrils. Once again, it was unlike anything Gaude had seen before. He wasn't sure if this was the worst case of getting your mind scrambled followed by its attempt to unscramble or a natural state. He spent some serious effort to try and see if there was anything legible contained within those nodes of light.

However, just a few moments later, Gaude could sense extreme hostility closing in on him from every direction. A booming voice resounded all around him: "Get Out Of My Head!"

Gaude got a minor headache from that single sentence. If his will form had any ears, they would be bleeding for sure. Gaude said without an inkling of remorse for invading another person's privacy: "Could you tune down the volume? I just came in to check if you're alright in here. You do realize that your body is comatose, right?"

The booming voice inside the vampire's mind didn't seem to be in a conversational mood, it shouted: "You already got what you came for. Now, begone!"

Gaude felt a powerful force knocking into his will, sending him tumbling backwards, right back into his own head. After the disorientation faded, he thought to himself: 'That was rude. He must be related to the Poneca clan, unless there are aliens living among vampires. That's the only reasonable explanation to what's inside that guy's head.'

As far as Gaude knew, the Poneca clan were the only ones in the wizarding world capable of long distance telepathy and were all born with eidetic memory and high intelligence. If not for their disdain for secular affairs, they might very well have become the rulers of the world. They probably considered humanity too dumb to even rule over. The only question was, how did one of them end up in the Sanguini clan.

Gaude didn't get hung up on the rare find for too long. As always, there was too little time and too much to do.