chapter 3

Platform 9 ¾, London, 1973

"Sweety remember to write me as many letters as you can and don't fool around with ladies" said Mrs. Lockhart, not taking in consideration that her son is just eleven, but it must be said that Gilderoy is no normal kid.

"Yes mom, I'll write you and the others as much as I can" replied the son, who after much consideration understood that this could be a perfect way to practice for the future when he'll need to answer tens of fan letters daily.

"Really? Is that the only reason you agreed to maintain a contact with your family trough letters while you stay in Hogwarts?" complained Allanon in his mind.

"Before speaking you should at least show yourself to be useful, till now all you taught me is how to meditate" rebutted Gilderoy, scoffing at the accusation of the voice inside his head.

After giving one last hug, Gilderoy left his mother and got on the train.

Unfortunately, while the first-years were busy exchanging pleasantries with their parents, the older students took the chance to get the closer compartments, so Gilderoy was forced to go toward the end of the train to get an empty one.

"I need to be fast… how was it called… ah yes Colloportus! Damn it didn't work. Colloportus! Colloportus!" finally on the third try it worked as Gilderoy got the right wand movement and door was locked.

"Why are you this eager to close the door? I though you would have liked to speak with people considering how much you like talking about yourself" commented Allanon as Gilderoy made himself comfortable on the seats.

"I like to have people that fawn all over me, but right now, like mom said many times, I need to make friends and I don't want to mingle with useless people, a man is worth as much as his connections are" proclaimed Gilderoy.

"But how does this have anything to do with locking the door" asked Allanon.

"Only the first years have yet to find a compartment and if one of them wants to join me he should at least be able to use the unlocking charm. This way I can find who is worthy and who isn't" stated Gilderoy with a proud smile.

"And what makes you think that these "worthy friends" will bother themselves with unlocking the door when they could just join another compartment?" asked Allanon.

"It doesn't matter, I'm not in a rush, after all how could I have problems with making friends when I am this awesome. Rather than making friend with people who will reveal themselves to be only burdens I can just enjoy my ride alone. Also, I have no intention to approach them first, after all they should all recognize who is the best and be the one to make the first attempt." Said Gilderoy making his typical smile he practiced many times in front of the mirror.

"You make great plans only for the stupidest things" lamented Allanon with an exhausted tone.

They had just started their partnership, but the druid was already exasperated. On the other hand Gilderoy was always positive and had an unbeatable confidence that kept emerging no matter what.

At least this made Allanon a little convinced that maybe it wasn't such a bad outcome having Gilderoy as his successor.

"I always make great plans".

"Yes, yes, you are the greatest boy on the Earth. Now, what do you think about starting the next part of your training?" asked Allanon.

"I've been waiting one whole month for that, and you want to start now that I'm on the train. I can't even assume the correct position here to meditate" complained Gilderoy.

"You can seat on the table, either way the train already departed and everyone found their accommodation, no one will bother you. Moreover right now you have a lot of free time and nothing to do, with no external distraction it will be easier to concentrate" explained Allanon and Gilderoy, who was curious about how his training will proceed, decided to listen to the old man and sat in a lotus position on the table.

Soon he stopped feeling the tremors on the train or the sounds of the voices that came from outside his compartment.

"Now try to reach my voice" suddenly Gilderoy heard Allanon voice, and he tried to understand from where it came from, but it wasn't something as easy as finding the direction of a voice that comes from a certain position.

It was like the voice appeared out of nowhere.

So he tried to concentrate more on that particular voice and suddenly it was as if a key had been given to him and now he could access to a new plain.

When he opened his eyes he found an old man in front of him.

"You were quicker than I expected, at least when it comes to talent you aren't bad" said Allanon, but Gilderoy rather than concentrating on the man he saw for the first time, he was more concerned about the surroundings.

"You old man, did you bring me to the afterlife!?" Exclaimed the young man as he looked at the blank space that surrounded the two of them.

While the whole place seemed void of anything in reality there were a many lights that seemed to have no source which wandered around; some of them were stronger than the others, while some faded slowly and passed through the ground to reach a place that Gilderoy had no way to know.

He could feel a strong energy coming from the blank ground, while something similar to the sun could be seen hight above.

"This is your mind Gilderoy, or at least the part you can access of it. There are two other parts located below this one, one contain those information that you are not aware in the immediate, but which you can recall thought your will, while the last part of your mind, which is the farthest from where you stand now, is the place where lay everything that you removed from your awareness, but from another point of you if we see your mind as a tower that part is also the foundation of who you are. That's why I call this place the mind tower and we now stand on its third floor" explained Allanon.

(If you find MANY similarities with the first topica of Freud it is because I took that as inspiration, but I couldn't use the same names because Allanon was born nearly two millenniums before Freud).

The boy was amazed at how complex could the mind be, and for the first time he thought that Allanon was more useful than what he tough.

"Can I see the second and first floor?" Asked Gilderoy.

"No, unfortunately, or fortunately, you can only access this part for now. The reason why I thought that a strong ego was necessary to explore the wonderfulness of our mind, is because of these two floors. Our ego can stay here without a problem, but the more we descend the tower the more we risk losing ourselves and become crazy. We are vulnerable in our minds, and these floors exist to protect us from ourselves. When I was still alive I was able to reach the second floor, but I failed when I tried to explore the third…" explained Allanon, but at the end his expression assumed a sad and scared appearance as he remembered a tragic moment of his past.

Gilderoy decided to not ask about that particular memory, as it seemed a bad idea, so he choose to rather distract Allanon by asking other questions.

"I still have three more questions for now" said the young boy.

"Fire away" said the druid, getting over his depression and using one of the modern slangs he found in Gilderoys' mind.

"What is the sun above?" asked first the young student.

"It is a passage connected the external word, the third floor is in direct contact with our surroundings. The practice called occlumency consist in putting barriers that block the access of others people to our mind, but at the same time we must not block that passage or we would enter in a vegetative state as we would become prisoners in our own body. That's why it is risky to practice the mind arts without a teacher" replied Allanon in exhaustive way as always.

"You can access only the information that fluctuates here on the third floor, right?" asked Gilderoy pointing at the many lights moving around us.

"Exactly, but I try not to access to personal things that doesn't interest me. Although it is difficult as this place is still messy. One day you'll even be able to monitor my actions while living your life, but for now you can only see me when you enter into a meditative state" He replied and Gilderoy tried to not think about the danger of having someone constantly inside his mind.

"Ok… then what do we do now?" asked lastly Gilderoy.

"I though you would never ask. As you can see this place is a mess, so we need put an order into it with a technique that was called mind palace in my times, although I have no idea of how they call it now and obviously you don't too or I would have known." Gilderoy soon realized that this old man truly considered his mind as a park where one could go sightseeing whenever he wanted.

It's the destiny of stars to not have a private life and Gilderoy already considered himself to be one.

(For those who also read my teen lion fan fiction, I'll see if i can write and publish yesterday's chapter later.)