Hogwarts: Era of Darkness

When it came to my first lesson with Lockhart, I approached his 'office' with part excitement and part nervousness. I was thinking if this was a trap or not and what to do if he came at me with his supposed signature spell. To my surprise, he was waiting for me with multiple thick books, parchment, ink, quill, and a big pot of boiling tea he just finished brewing.

"Good timing, my friend!" He smiled, pointing at the desk where I would sit while listening to him.

"Professor." I nodded, looking puzzled, but I sat down and took a cup he presented to me.

"First things first, this is not going to be my usual, fun lessons filled with flair and exciting exercises! Gone the flashy spells and the so easily memorizable experience that I always entertain you little rascals with!"

"Bet…" I whispered under my breath.

"Memory charms are most often used for bewitching muggles and removing certain memories! To keep ourselves secret or nudge them to make decisions that favor us! Of course, this is its most simple and most used... well, primitive part of it, but it can do so much more than that!"

"I see." I looked at him, and seeing him stop, I realized he was waiting for me to start taking notes. What the hell…? Is he now acting like a real professor? Is this a play? I was… not expecting anything like this! Okay… I can play along! So I started taking notes, and he continued with a satisfied smile.

"Do you know what memory is?"

"Um… well… a collection of… things that I remember?"

"Then let me teach you!" He chuckled, walking up and down before my desk and looking down at me, clearly enjoying the fact he could act high and mighty before me. Oh well… "Imagine that your brain is like a complex magic formation! A specially bewitched object! It records, categorizes, labels, and then stores everything it comes in contact with!"

"Everything?"

"Every… little… thing!" He pronounced it slowly, emphasizing every part of his sentence. "Have you ever heard about Pensieves?"

"..." I had to rack my brain a little before it clicked for me, "Yes, the devices that help you relive others' memories, their experiences."

"Why do you think the memories you pour into them have so much detail? Why can it be viewed so clearly? Simple! The brain collects everything your senses pick up, organizes, and then stores it!"

"But…"

"A-a!" Lockhart said, cutting me off, already knowing my question, "Every brain has its limits depending on how trained they are. Of course, we, wizards and witches, have an exceptionally well working one! BUT! This does not mean you can recall said memories, as our brains filter out many unnecessary details! Our consciousness can only work with a set number of segments; giving us too much information would result in our minds breaking down! You can train that part, it is a skill like any others, but it is not easy… Although most famous wizards had the gift and could remember so many components, it would drive simple-minded people insane!"

"Professor-"

"I am, of course, counted amongst those people, ahaha~!" He laughed proudly, taking a sip from his tea.

"I highly doubt this…" I said to myself as I decided to remain silent in the end. I am here to learn, not to argue.

"But let's get us back to the topic; I need to make you understand the basics so you are up to speed before we start trying any spellcasting! The easiest way to penetrate someone's memories is to know where to start looking for it… so you will have to dabble in a little bit of two side subjects. One is Legilimency, and the other is going to be Occlumency. I am going to give you books you should read on your own; you can find them in the library!"

I was, honestly, floored. He was really acting like a Professor! What? Was he charmed? Or… eh? No way… what the? If I am not experiencing this for myself, I wouldn't believe this at all!

"Now, now, I know I am dazzling, but start writing!" He smirked, and I had to hold back my curses. He truly knew what he was doing regarding memory and how it worked. I was starting to feel I needed to be more careful around him…. "Hehe, I told you it is not an easy subject." He murmured, watching me record his words, the list of books he wanted me to borrow, and repeating what he just said multiple times so I could remember it.

"Nothing comes easy," I answered calmly; now I had to give a 100%, I would make him teach me this, and I WILL master it!

"Now, when penetrating one's mind to extract, modify, or simply erase some memories, you first get through their defenses. The mental protection of muggles is easy to break; no worries there. Most mages also have weak resistance to it, but for anyone who is dabbling in the mentioned two extra professions, you will have to be extra careful or not even try it! It can easily result in a backlash and the spell rebounding onto yourself!"

"I see."

"This is no joke!" He warned me seriously, "When penetrating someone's mind, everything will happen instantly! For you and him, it isn't like that, though. You may spend hours in someone's mind, looking for what you want to remove! But in reality, it happens in an instant! Time has no meaning once we enter the dimension our mind resides in!"

"..." I was mesmerized… what was happening? Was he really like this and played the fool for everyone else? I… Am I starting to feel some respect towards him?

"We can separate the mind into two parts. The conscious mind and the subconsciousness. The first is what you are. What you can access. All those memories that your brain deems worthy of remembering get stored there. All the spells you use are recorded in your conscious mind, so you can always access them. The best wizards can make them slip into their subconsciousness, getting them ingrained into it so they can cast their signature spells without thinking about it! So... we have to speak about subconsciousness next. That part dictates your behavior and habits and is the home of all the information your brain deems as noise. When someone extracts a memory, they draw it out from both places at once, with all the details and information your senses recorded! That is why looking into a Pensive allows you to relieve that memory like being in there!"

"When we want to delete a memory… we remove it from both places?"

"Removing memories is a misspoken concept. We can't remove them for real. To do that, you would have to understand how the mind works and how the brain works, which is… impossible. Nobody did that, and nobody will, in my opinion. You can't think about your brain as a brain... you can only think about it as yourself. Separating your mind and body and looking at your own memories as objects and not part of you is... a concept that even the best struggle with. It's like wanting to write with a quill that you are in the process of dismantling. Can you do the two at once?"

"Then… what are we doing, Professor?"

"We drag the memory we want from the consciousness and push it into the subconscious! The deeper you bury it, the more hidden it becomes, and the harder it becomes for another witch or wizard to find it! Same with any other versions! Do you want to modify their memories? Find the original, copy it, push the real one deep down, and replace it with the tampered copy."

"I see…" I murmured, biting the tip of my quill. This was truly something else… and he indeed had the aura of an expert right now. Hats off to you, Professor. "How do we find the memory we are looking for?"

"The brain stores it in canonical order. You need to go back, year by year, looking for it and maintaining the connection, fighting back potential protective spells, concentrating on finding it, extracting; all this takes a firm will to succeed in!"

"This sounds exhilarating but also very dangerous."

"It can be, but it is more dangerous for the victim-, khm, a subject you use it on. Damaging memories is damaging the mind. One wrong move, and you could kill. Not physically! The body may very well live on, but the mind will be beyond repair, resulting in nothing but a husk of a living being! So yes… it is not something easily done. Of course, most who learn it only learn the basics, identify memory, push it down into the subconsciousness, and get on with it. I am much, much more capable than your run-of-the-mill wizards!"

"And we are back to bragging." I sighed to myself.

"Before I let you try and cast the spell, you are going to learn about the mind, its functions, and the theories! Only after that will we begin!"

And with that, he ended our first lesson. I can't say I was disappointed; quite the opposite. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed even, and it had to show on my face as Quincy rushed up to me at once when I got back to the common room.

"Conrad…" She whispered, her face full of worry, picking out her wand and pointing it at my temple.

"Woah, woah, what are you doing?!"

"Ah… I… I thought you were… under a spell…" She murmured, still holding her wand to my head, thinking of casting her spell to ensure everything was right. "You looked… out of place! Like someone who was bewitched!"

"I… I just… you simply won't believe this… come!" I held her hand, pulling her to a chair at the far end, and explained everything to her.

"Are you sure you weren't duped? That he didn't put a memory charm on your mind?" She asked, suspicious, not believing my words, at least not 100%, and I couldn't blame her for it.

"I wasn't. But… to be sure, we will study it together, and you can test me! You will cover my back, Quincy."

"Um!" She nodded, and now she was the one who leaned forward, pecking my cheeks, turning my face red as a tomato, and wearing a triumphant grin.

"Khm! I think… I am going to be! It was… a shock. I mean the lesson. Yes."

"Good night~!" She giggled, and with that, I had my first sleepless night for a long time… only, now I wasn't chased by a snake… but I was spending it with Quincy…