Suffering, you weakling!!!
| January 11, 1992 | Room of Arcana |
"huff...huff... can someone tell me why we're running with these things in hand? It's stupid."
"huff...huff... Don't speak, Miss Know-It-All; you'll tire yourself out faster and give us more exercise to do," said Daphné to Hermione, both of them lagging behind the rest of the group.
"Damn huff...huff... if it weren't for this stupid rule that we have to run at full speed for 10 seconds if we drop the ball, I would have been fine."
"At least one of us huff...huff... handles Lilian's exercise well. I can't imagine how long Harry Potter had to endure his brother's torment to do it so effortlessly," Blaise said to Tracey, who, despite having endurance to spare, struggled with mana control.
While five people suffered under the infernal exercise designed by Lilian for Harry's training in H.E.L.L., the creator, Lilian, monitored the recorded data and calmly discussed with Professor Flitwick, who was concerned about the students' condition.
"Lilian, don't you think this training is going too far? As a former champion in the art of dueling, I agree with you that physical fitness matters. I myself took advantage of my opponents by relying on my size. But this, I think, is too much," said the small professor, alternating his gaze between Lilian and the runners.
"Don't worry, Professor. I took everything into account when creating this exercise. Participants must run at a slow pace while levitating the enchanted steel ball between their hands. This helps improve their endurance and perseverance with slow-paced running, as well as their control over their mana and concentration. And if they drop the ball, they must pick it up using their mana, run at full speed for 10 seconds, and then resume the normal exercise. Given the number of times they'll drop the ball, they'll enhance their speed through maximum running and their determination to prevent it from happening again. A perfect exercise for control and fortification. And by adding potions that enhance their magical senses and regeneration, it's the creation of very powerful wizards in the making."
Once again, during his explanation, one could, from an external point of view, see the madness in Lilian's eyes as he watched the data come in.
"If it's so perfect, why don't you do it? huh?" yelled Tracey with all the strength she could muster.
"Because this exercise won't help me anymore, considering my level of body fortification and mana control. That's why I do a different exercise every day when I wake up at five in the morning. Do you want to join me, Tracey? Oh, and it's not the warm-up we used to do when we ran together," Lilian said with a mocking smile.
"Um... but... no, it's fine, I love this exercise, I think I'll keep this one," Tracey said hastily. She grumbled to herself that their 'warm-up' was her actual training.
And so, their ordeal continued for some time.
------ (time skip) ------
"Great, now let's start dueling each other, more data on what your strengths and weaknesses could be. This will, of course, be under the supervision of our prestigious professor and former duelist."
The room filled with silence and horror, everyone staring at Lilian, who smiled like a monster. Only his brother Harry was already getting up with a placid expression; clearly, it wasn't his first time.
"Wait, wait, wait, Lilian, how are we going to duel? Can't you see we're already exhausted; we should rather take a break!" Tracey said anxiously. They would be dead if they continued to follow Lilian's program. A point that everyone else agreed with her on.
They did the only thing that could stop Lilian, and they all looked at Professor Flitwick, silently pleading through their eyes to stop their torment.
"Um, young Lilian, I think it's really time to stop today's session after all; it's only the first day your workshop is open, we shouldn't traumatize them to come back, right?" Even Mr. Flitwick had become fearful of the intensity of the training Lilian wanted to subject them to.
"What!? But... but what about their progress? They won't be complete if they don't duel, and I won't be able to help them," Lilian said sadly. He looked like a child who had been deprived of his toy.
"I understand your willingness to help your friends, which I find very noble of you. But you can't impose your standards on them. You must also understand that helping is good, but forcing them to do things they don't want, no matter how much it's for their own good, will bring nothing."
Lilian seemed to understand what his professor meant, looked one last time with hope at his friends, only to notice their eagerly awaiting gaze for his response.
He sighed and said, "Well... it'll be for another time."
"Yeah!!!" for some mystical reason, they all seemed to have instantly regained their strength, shouting with joy, only to collapse from fatigue.
"By Merlin's beard! Are you all okay?" seeing everyone in such a state with the professor taking care of them, Lilian decided to move on to his second project for the day.
Now that he had a space purely dedicated to research, it was time to innovate. But not in just any branch of magic, but in the one in which Lilian excelled the most. Mental magic.
Mental magic is one of the most unexplored branches along with soul magic. The only spells Lilian could find on the subject were Occlumency and Legilimency, a spell for mental barrier and reading probably made by the same person. And some mind healing spells made by wizard healers.
But other than that, nothing. Absolutely nothing. Lilian doesn't think there has ever been research on the subject, but he believes that any research that may have existed was buried through time or simply hidden. After all, knowledge in the wizarding world is a precious weapon, and having a spell steal that weapon was too dangerous in a time when the wizarding world was less civilized.
To start his exploration of such magic, Lilian thought he would keep it simple. He would begin with mind magic of the illusion type.
Illusions in magic, for now, were simple sleights of hand, creating light refractions to confuse the target but not engaging the target's senses.
The problem for Lilian now was the method of introducing the illusion to the target. Normally, it would be done through the eyes, as in Legilimency. However, Lilian's immunity to Legilimency due to his blindness also worked in the opposite sense – he couldn't affect others. It would be a shame to create a spell he couldn't use.
The most logical solution would be to induce the illusion through other senses. The most likely sense to work: hearing.
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then hearing is the gateway to the mind.
The spell's principle should work like hypnosis, where a given sound produced with the intention of hypnotizing, given by magic, should, as one could say, hack the target's mental code to confuse it.
There is a second reason why this type of spell has never appeared, which is the existence of the cursed spell Imperio, which makes manipulating the target more certain. The problem is that the spell is a soul spell, which stains the caster's soul.
Lost in these thoughts, Lilian reconsidered a subject he had put aside until now.
One of the powers of his owl, which had changed its breed to become a Lunar.
A mystical owl race with the ability to control and travel through darkness. The power Lilian had put aside was the ability to see through the astral world.
Thinking about the possibility of seeing souls, he thought it was time to try.
He asked his owl, who always stayed in his shadow, to share its vision with him. She did so immediately, feeling joy in helping her human friend.
Lilian held his breath; of course, he had often looked through Skotádi's eyes. But now, he would experience seeing a whole new world. Who wouldn't be nervous and excited for that?
Skotádi activated her power, and he saw.
He saw himself, but entirely white with golden outlines on his silhouette. He saw himself without eyeballs, only a black mass in a shapeless state, curiously resembling moons, and all of this was in the location of his eyes. His contract mark, perhaps?
He saw the world. A cluster of omnipresent particles, some white, others blue, others green, etc. He didn't know what it represented, but he thought it might be the physical form of magic.
He had always sensed magic with his developed senses, like hearing something very far away with his ears, but as he had never seen vibrations in the air, he had never seen magic in this form, and it was quite a spectacle.
He saw the souls of his friends in the distance, resembling exactly their bodies. Only Harry was different, like him. He also had a golden outline present only on Lilian and Harry. He also had black on his soul like Lilian, but Harry's was also apparent on his physical body, his lightning-shaped mark near the eye. Lilian thought that, like his contract mark on his eyes, this was Harry's.
Looking with Skotádi's eyes in this beautiful, almost pure world, his attention fell below him. Strangely, there was no limit to his vision, but he could only see the souls of those in the same room as him. Looking down, in this beautiful world, he saw something that horrified him—an abyss so black that he could feel it pulling all undesirable things from the world. Like... a true hell.
Looking through the abyss, it was as if the abyss looked through him, judging whether it should draw him towards it.
"Damn, Skotádi, come back, come back to normal sight quickly!"
Returning to his body, Lilian knelt down; the intensity of the abyss's gaze had drained all his energy and strangely his mana.
"Okay, no more looking through the Astral world without being certain that nothing will happen to me."
Lilian laughed out loud, drawing the attention of others to him. This day was clearly amusing for him.
----------------------------------------------
|May 1, 1992| Hogwarts Library|
In the late afternoon, Lilian found Hermione Granger, as usual, in the library. It was one of their secret meetings that they used to have to discuss classes, books, life, or simply magic.
On this particular Friday, they noticed a very suspicious behavior in the section on dragons. And it was done by a giant very familiar to the two children.