Chapter 7: Shiroe Ishii
Draco woke up with a start.
Someone was messing with a lock.
Is it coming from my door? he wondered and in the next moment, he was holding his wand, myriads of spell incantations flashing through his mind.
Stopping every movement, he concentrated on his ears.
Clank.
The person who was fiddling with the door finally managed to open it.
"Merlin, I've become paranoid," the boy muttered lightly, looking straight at his still-locked door.
He slowly got up, knowing that sleep would elude him for the rest of the day.
How did I even manage to fall asleep? he wondered.
He was still waiting for the demon-like red gaze to suddenly meet his own, for the dark lord to find him and take retribution.
However the dark lord didn't come, no one did.
Hell, I don't even know that they suspect me of anything. Perhaps Donna didn't reveal anything, perhaps she wasn't asked anything, he thought with bitter optimism.
It was most likely that the dark lord had informed his death eaters of his treason and they would soon pass the information to their children, his schoolmates, and his housemates.
His dorm-mates…
I won't be able to sleep in my dorm, Draco realised exhausted.
Just where would he go?
That was a problem for his future self to handle…
The boy got up and cast some basic hygienic spells on himself, before proceeding to sit at the desk.
Opening his pouch, which was carelessly left sitting at the desk the night before, he summoned the book.
"Accio 'Into the mind'," he whispered and the book flew, from the magical depths of the leather container, into his hand.
Bothered by the weight of the item, Draco placed it down on the desk and looked at it…
Damnation.
There were a few details he didn't discern in the low light of his room the previous night.
Embossed in a light silver, the tome sat in front of him, unassuming.
How come I didn't see it before? Draco wondered, a feeling of dread creeping on him.
In the centrepiece of the cover, there was a prominent eye, almost human-like in its appearance, surrounded by swirling patterns and some kind of runes.
"Creepy," he observed weakly, gazing into the eye that looked too real for comfort.
Feeling uneasy, Draco opened the book with his left hand, idly noting the name of the author written on the book's left corner, Shiroe Ishii*.*
As soon as he was out of the eye's view, he felt a tenseness he hadn't noticed manifesting, disappear.
What the hell, he wondered, confused by the state the cover of the insidious book left him in.
The silence was suddenly made unbearable.
"It's just an eye," he muttered, trying to make some kind of noise and calm down.
Draco took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus and turn his attention to the first page of the book.
The first few pages were filled with densely packed writing, explaining how the mind worked.
«The mind's functions are primarily managed by the brain, which is divided into several regions, each responsible for different aspects of cognition and behaviour. There's the cerebral cortex ****which is the outermost layer of the brain and is responsible for higher-order functions like thinking, planning, and decision-making. It also has a primary part when casting transfiguration. Then there's the hippocampus, a key structure for memory formation, particularly in converting short-term memories into long-term ones. I myself found out about the amygdala, as I named it, which is involved in emotional processing and can influence how memories, particularly emotional ones, are stored. It is fundamental for every kind of magic to be cast. It also gives a particularly strong flare, for those who can see magic, when one casts the patronus charm. I believe I've found one more part of the brain that is associated with complex cognitive behaviour, personality expression, and moderating social behaviour. However, by the time I'm writing this book, I cannot confidently confirm my assumptions. Further testing and experimentations are in order.»
The pages rustled faintly as Draco turned them, the sound oddly amplified in the silence of the room.
The author then went on and explained how memory formation is a multi-step process and broke it down into three main stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Draco skimmed the text, feeling a strange mix of fascination and trepidation.
Some of the descriptions the author offered were much more informative than they should have been.
There was one paragraph in which he went on, explaining how exactly a human brain responded when being under the cruciatus curse for longer than a minute.
Then there were the findings he noted and named.
There was only one way he could have achieved those things.
Further testing and experimentations are in order, the words he had read in some earlier chapter flashed in Draco's mind.
He was suddenly overcome by a feeling of sickness and blanched.
With swift and ungraceful steps he made his way into the room's bathroom and to the toilet.
He couldn't hold himself back anymore as he opened his mouth and puked the breakfast Rosmerta had served him sometime along his studying.
I'm reading a diary of a madman, he realised.
It wasn't that it didn't cross his mind before, but he didn't dare to entertain that thought.
He had written about five years old and how they reacted when exposed to the Veritaserum, how their minds crumbled under its power, for Merlin's sake.
The book was thorough and meticulous in its explanations. It was unlike anything he had studied at Hogwarts, much more advanced and countless times more sinister.
He couldn't understand much of it and knew he'd have to buy some supplementary reading to make sense of it, for he had to.
Draco returned back to the room and closed shut the book, finding himself under the eye's gaze once again.
He couldn't shake off the sense that something was watching him and briefly wondered if the eye had some kind of life in it.
He turned the book so that the cover faced down and tiredly decided to take a break.
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