The tournament would be the perfect opportunity. It was violent, public, and who knew the lengths a young boy would go through to win against his famous brother. Jealousy was such a terrible thing.
In the ring below, Mister Potter let off a particularly well coordinated spell chain. A long distance smoke illusion, followed by a zero friction charm aimed at the floor, and finished up with a low powered area of effect stunner, the kind of thing that could reach around a hastily cast shield, if the target wasn't paying attention — an interesting combination — and one the young Potter seemed quite fond of.
White — Pink — Brown
White — Pink — Brown
Hmm… that area of effect stunner spell at the end looked rather similar to a certain dark high-powered blasting curse, didn't it?
White — Pink — Brown
White — Pink — Brown
Dumbledore watched for a few more minutes before nodded to himself, getting up, and leaving. He had what he needed. By Thursday, Harry felt he was running out of immediately useful ideas. The mental manipulation on Hermione was a dud. The Mirror of Erised was obviously more sophisticated than that. He sat alone, crosslegged in front of the mirror, probing the artefact with his magic and looking for any loopholes in its design.
In the mirror, an adult Harry sat in the middle of what could only be described as an ocean of family. All the girls were there, all grown up with dozens of children playing around them in the grounds of a proud and unbreakable Slytherin Manor, in front of which, was a mountain of gold, on top of which sat a single red stone, taunting him with its closeness.
By Harry's feet, the book on mind healing lay open to the page on how to fight a phobia using occlumency. He'd had an idea.
The first step in curing a phobia with occlumency was learning to create a second personality that would live in his mind — a split personality. This personality would serve multiple purposes, the first and most immediate being to wrestle control of the body while the main personality suffered from the phobia induced panic attack.
This was a less than ideal solution, but it provided the set up for the second step of the treatment — using a split consciousness controlled mind-scape to simulate the conditions of the phobia and gradually desensitise the main consciousness to it. He needed a second consciousness, because, as Harry told Ginny all those months ago during their dreamland training, if you want something in your dreamworld, you have it, which makes it impossible to recreate the conditions of a phobia since, the moment you don't want that massive spider to be crawling all over you, it will disappear.
Harry found it deliciously ironic that the most important step in curing his phobia of being trapped was to learn to create and use another, even more serious mental condition.
He'd been practising in every free moment that he wasn't ether dealing with Lord Slytherin business, training with the girls, or dealing with those Harry Potter obligations he couldn't hand wave away. In that practise time, he thought he'd managed to get the first step working.
Harry looked away from the mirror, reached deep into his occlumency, putting everything that he was into a neat little package, and split it as though it were a mitosis intended microbe.
Something sparked into being inside him. Well, hello there, Harry.
Harry mentally grinned. He had an alternate consciousness.
Just call me Alt.
That sounded fair. Were they ready to give it a go?
Yes, we are.
Harry steeled himself and looked back up into the mirror.
In the ocean of family, two identical Harry Potters stood looking very confused at each other. All around them, their children squealed and giggled, pointing and tugging at their mother's sleeves, who looked rather bemused by the sudden appearance of an extra husband in their midst.
Harry looked down. He was going to bring them back together.
I'm quite okay with that.
Harry slowly moulded consciousnesses back together.
his
two
The little spark inside him went out.
Right. Now he had to create the same split, but this time with a slight change in his alt. He needed his alt to only want the stone, not to use it or give it to him or anything like that, just to get it. Harry formed that neat little package again, but while it split he reached across the slowly forming divide between them and dove into the newly forming consciousness, erasing just those few small motivations. It was all he could manage before the split finalised, he leapt back across the divide, and that special something sparked back into being.
Well, hello there, Harry.
Harry mentally nodded. Hopefully this would work.
Ah, there might be a slight problem there.
Harry frowned in real life. A problem?
Yes, I suggest you look into the mirror.
Harry looked. The two Harrys were now having an argument. One furious Harry had his hand pointed towards the gold-swimming stone while the other had his arms crossed, stubbornly shaking his head.
What?
I want to find the stone, but I don't want you to have it, Harry. Nor do I want you to use it. I'm sorry, but I won't retrieve it for you.
Harry leaned forward and hit his head on the open book.
In Dumbledore's office, John fingered the rune dense duelling robe in his lap with not a small amount of trepidation. "How much will this hurt? You know, on a scale of one to the cruciatus?"
Dumbledore gave him a look over his moon shaped glasses. "I fear that wouldn't be a useful scale for you, John." "One to ten, then?"
"Quite low. The blast will knock you unconscious almost immediately. The real pain will come during recovery."
John nodded. "I'm quite used to pain during recovery."
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