In that next room, I store Gilderoy's more secret memories and things he generally doesn't want people to know, embarrassing stuff really and nothing of any actual consequence. Still, they are things Gilderoy would not want to get out, as they would ruin his image in the public's view. Of course, I do not include his mastery of obliviation or his obliviating and stealing his stories. After all, this library is supposed to be a decoy for anyone who manages to make it this far inside my mindscape.
But if someone manages to make it this far, someone like Dumbledore, who is probably aware or suspects that Gilderoy Lockhart stole the memories of other wizards for his books, then it would obviously be suspicious that those memories are not included in this. And so, I take it a step further and create another secret room, but this time I do it underneath this one, and you have to physically push a giant marble statue of myself that I put in the middle of the room. But, again, it just felt like this would sell the story more.
This time though, I make sure that the room is pitch black. When I place the memories on the shelves throughout the room, I intersperse them with various memories from the previous rooms, making sure the order is as random as possible. This room is purely for the people that already know about these memories and are looking for them, so basically, Dumbledore, as I know from the books that he is friends with one of the wizards Gilderoy stole a story from, so if he knows and comes looking he will find this and not look any deeper.
I don't want any of this stuff to be found out, but if someone as powerful as Dumbledore comes to find them, then I don't know if I would be able to stave him off, and I don't want someone with that kind of power running around with the knowledge from my past life and the seven books of Harry Potter.
This is my last decoy to stop people from finding my previous life's memories, and if the memories in this room are located, then it is not the end of the world. I have magic now, which means I can do anything, so I can figure out how to create a new identity and change my appearance. It is not as if they have any sort of ID in the magical world or a magical signature or something. I could easily create a new life for myself if needed, but I will try sticking it out with this one for now. After all, I am in a position of power due to my fame, and it would be a shame to give it all up.
With that done, I spent some more time adding the finishing touches to this underground library and neatening it up, making sure that it was detailed enough because when I did my brick test, I discovered that the more complicated the brick was, the more solid it was. So, therefore, I will spend as much time as possible detailing my mindscape to the utmost degree, every day working on it to perfect it and never stopping. Even when I think it is finished, I will continue to add to it.
This whole process did not happen in an instant. It actually took full days. I spent a lot of time just testing the bricks and finding the best one before starting on my mindscape. It is very tiresome work that really taxes the mind. I didn't even check on my captive.
I was so tired from my work, and honestly, I didn't really care about him. I could dimly hear his shouts from where I was working on my mindscape, but I ignored him. I could think about feeding him and his hygiene later. Right now, I have to focus on myself and forging my mind.
The first thing I have to do now is to hide the library and make it even harder to find, which means my first order of business is working on the caves under the lake as well as the lake itself. Starting with the caves, I want to make an absolute maze that makes it nearly impossible to get through to the library. To do that, I just give myself the power of flight and start to zoom all over the underground, burrowing through the rocks and making dozens of different paths and entrances.
It didn't take as long as I would've thought to finish as I made an extensive maze of caves and paths with only one passageway leading to the library, I'm sure there is more that I can do to protect it even more, but this will be sufficient for now, I have to work on other stuff as well.
So now, to work on the outside and improve the appearance, and so I start to alter the terrain, spreading sand along the seafloor and adding corals, reeds, seagrass and a variety of other things to really make it feel like a seabed, and I use these things to cover up the entrances to the maze.
Down with the lake, for now, having at the very least disguised the entrances to the maze somewhat, I turn my gaze towards the sky. I can add more detail later. But, looking up at the clear blue sky and the fluffy white clouds, I can clearly see that there is something undeniably missing: the sun, which is what I am going to create next.
I start by imagining a small glass sphere high up in the sky, which holds a space of around 50 square metres. I make sure to concentrate to the very best of my ability, focusing my all on this creation and imagining the object as the strongest thing to ever exist and thinking of the super dragon balls from Dragon Ball while creating it. My brain begins to ache. Still, I carry on non the less, pushing through to make the most critical thing in my mindscape.
With a mental pop, I let myself go and begin to relax, letting all the tension leave me as I finish making my creation, and when I look up at the sky, I can see an orange crystal ball floating there. Moving closer, I inspect it on the outside and make my best brick and fling it at the ball, only for it to bounce off. Then, concentrating my mind, I create dozens upon dozens of bricks and begin to rapid-fire them at the ball like a machine gun, only for them all to bounce off.
Satisfied, I get rid of the bricks and then teleport inside the crystal ball. Inspecting it from the inside, I can tell it is just as good as on the outside and proceed to the next step of my creation. Concentrating, I form a block of steel inside the crystal ball, and then I concentrate on making an identical steel block right next to it. Getting close to one of them, I put my finger inside it and dug into it, making a groove. Looking towards the other steel block, I can see the same groove in it as well.
Grabbing that steel block, I teleport down to the ground with it, leave it there and then go back up inside the crystal and make another groove on the steel block. Teleporting back down, I see the exact same groove in this steel block, meaning distance is not an issue.
Then I concentrate and begin to form the sun, thinking of the hottest thing in existence as well as Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto. The Captain Commander of the Gotei 13 in Bleach, whose power of flame was so great he could devastate all life, again I feel the same pain, but I just push through it.
Again the strain suddenly releases, and I begin to feel a deep heat on my skin. It is warm and hot but not to the point of being uncomfortable. Looking up, I can see a small sun in the sky, lording above my mindscape. It is a beautiful vibrant yellow that illuminates all of my lands. Quickly looking to the side at the steel block, I can see that it is just the same as it was before, completely unaffected.
Happy with the results, I teleport up into the orange crystal ball at the centre of the sun I just created. Once inside, when I look out, I can see nothing but the scorching flames surrounding the crystal ball. Seeing the unharmed steel block, I vanish it from existence as it had served its purpose. While I did create the crystal ball with the intention for the things outside not to affect the inside, I couldn't trust that it would work, which is why I tested it with the steel blocks.
Now with my secret space inside the sun itself, I release all of my most precious memories, the memories from my past life, to float around the inside of the orange crystal ball as orbs of white light. There is no reason to disguise them as glass balls like the other ones. after all, nobody is going to think to search the inside of the sun.
Satisfied with my work for the day I leave my mindscape, I have taken care of all the urgent problems and fulfilled all the immediate needs. I can take time later to further refine my mindscape. After all, I have done all I can, and all that's needed now is time to further improve it.
Well then, I suppose it is time I check up on Digby. D. Digworth. after all, it has been over two days since I left him in that room. Hmm, the last time I thought about him, I felt unquenchable rage bathed in the fury of a thousand waves, but now I just feel very, very justifiably angry at him and vengeful. I guess working on your mindscape and creating things can be very therapeutic. Who knew.
Standing up, I make my way over to the room where he is held captive, and I open the door.
"AGGGGHH, YOU BASTARD!! I WILL KILL YO-" I slam the door shut when I catch sight of Digby raving around like a lunatic, foaming at the mouth like he has rabies. With the short glance I got at him before I relieved my eyes from the horrific sight, I saw slobber covering the upper half of his body and then a whole host of other stains covering the different parts of his body. Yellow stains, brown stains, orange stains and even green stains, I could not deal with any of that stuff right now, and I am not entering the room with him like that.
Making a U-turn, I head towards my library to look through the Hogwarts books. I know a variety of cleaning charms and spells, but those were primarily appearance-based. Still, even if those charms worked on him, I would never be able to be in that room without thinking of that sight.
So I am going to the library to learn the vanishing spell, Evanesco. It is a transfiguration spell which transfigures the target into nothingness. That is what I need. So instead of just cleaning that stuff, it needs to be destroyed.
Heading into my library, I begin to pilfer through all the textbooks in search of this essential spell, and it takes me quite a while to skim through all of the transfiguration books, going up incrementally by year in order, but eventually, I get to the fifth year textbooks and discover the spell. I know that this is a transfiguration spell, and Gilderoy was never any good at transfigurations, so I have hardly any knowledge about it, but I am willing to learn it. I will not enter that room again without it.
And once I have learned it and cleaned Digby up, and then I can get to the real reason I kept him around. To start learning more about magic, I will need a guinea pig, and Digby just so happened to turn up, and well, needs must.
Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.
Chapter 8– R&D.
Edited: 19/03/2023
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Finally, I have done it. I have learnt the vanishing spell, which is the key to me understanding all sorts of more intricate magic because I am not going near that man with a ten-foot pole until he is all cleaned up, and he is going to be my test dummy for the foreseeable future.
I brandish my wand at one of the countless fiction novels that past Gilderoy had filled his library with, and the books that have now come in quite handy as I have been using them for target practice.
Pointing my wand towards the book, I focus intently on the object I want to vanish, to completely disappear and turn into nothingness, and then I begin the wand movement.
First, I bring my wand down and then to the right, and then down and to the left and then down and to the right. Each time the length of my draw gets bigger, the movement is basically a squiggle that gets longer after each turn.
"Evanesco." I intone, making sure to pronounce it ev-an-ES-ko, which is critical. My other attempts where I did not say it correctly either ended up doing nothing or mutating the object into some weird new thing which just looked wrong. There is no bright light as is usual with most spells, not even a sound. The book is just there for one second, and then it is gone. Vanished.
I move with purpose to my next target. I see no reason to delay any longer with everything prepared. So, leaving the library, I move to my- to my dungeon? No, it is not a dungeon, but what else do you call a room where you hold people captive, where you keep prisoners? It is not a prison either, or at least I don't want to call it that.
I guess I will henceforth refer to it as the guest room where my guest stays. It seems much more elegant and neat that way. If I ever do mention it in passing when I am finally out of this house, then I can pass it off as just a regular guest and not the balding middle-aged fat man I keep locked in the spare room.
Opening the door, I am treated to the sight of Digby. D. Digworth sleeping, which was not what I expected. I totally expected to see him sitting there ranting and raving, cursing me to hell and back and barraging me with threats of all kinds about when he is finally free.
Hell, I even slightly expected him to be sat there weeping, and when he caught sight of me, he would start begging for forgiveness and for me to spare him his life, snotting all over the place and promising to be different from then on, that he would forget about this and never even think of it again.
Yet here, this toad of a man sits, slumbering away, snoring without a care in the world, completely covered in his own filth, bloody disgusting. He has not eaten or drunk anything for the past few days, he has been entirely trapped on that chair at the behest of someone that he had just tried to murder, and Digby has the luxury of sleeping when he should be worrying for his life like I feared for my life, it pisses me off.
Not bothering about his sleeping state, I am more bothered about the litany of stains colouring his entire being, the yellow, the brown, the green and the white, which I am not even going to question, probably just slobber and drool. Whatever all that stuff is, all that matters is that I get rid of it as soon as possible. Otherwise, I don't think I will be able to stay in this room any longer. Even standing in the doorway, I feel sick.
I raise my wand, which I have been getting more and more familiar with since I woke up, and I point it in the direction of the sleeping oaf in my house. I realise at this moment that this is the furthest I have ever been from my target. When I was practising in the library, I was right next to the desk I was placing the novels on, so I was casting the vanishing spell at point-blank range, which I am not doing now.
Digby. D. Digworth is a couple meters away from me, strapped to a chair in the middle of the room while I am standing in the doorway of that room, I have never cast the spell from this far away, and I don't know if it will be effective at this range. Of course, this could be easily solved by simply moving closer to the man and then casting the spell, but that would require me to move closer to the man before casting the spell.
To put it simply, the man smells horrible, even from where I am standing, and he looks disgusting as well. If there is one thing that I don't like, it is getting unbearably dirty or going near awful things. Of course, I am okay with getting my hands dirty. But, still, I do not want to go swimming in a pit of slugs or go near a mountain of dead bodies, and I think that is reasonable.
So why the hell am I going to do something that I don't want to do for this sack of shit in front of me, the same pug-faced bastard that tried to murder me? When I have to go wading into the filth, then I am going to make sure that I am either doing it for myself or someone I care about, and I don't have anyone like that at the moment.
So if I end up vanishing this guy from existence, then so be it. As far as I can see, that would be much better than me going near his disgusting body and violating my own virtue.
But I also do need this guy as a test dummy. Otherwise, I am going to have to wait until I come across the next asshole that crosses me, and while I don't mind doing that, I would still like to have a test dummy now rather than later, which means I have to focus on this spell. So, with my wand still pointing at the grotesque sight in front of me, I begin to focus and visualise what I want to happen when I cast the spell.
I want all of the stains on Digby. D. Digworth to be cleaned. I want them all to vanish. I want all of the filth on his person to be extinguished from existence. I wish for all of the disgustingness in this room to disappear. I want all of the stains, all of the dirt, and all of the filth to evaporate into nothingness. I want it all, all of it, to be gone.
"Evanesco." I didn't even realise it, but I had closed my eyes when I was trying to visualise what I wanted to happen in reality, so I opened them wide. I immediately turned around, wishing to Merlin that my eyes did not work. I desperately want to go and find a bottle of bleach to wash my eyes even if I damage them in the process, but then I realise that bleach is a muggle product, and I have none at hand right now. I want to cut my eyes out.
"Hm, ah, what- AH, WHY THE HELL AM I- YOU, YOU BASTARD! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" Digby awakes and screams bloody murder when the effects of my spell are made known, or rather the outcome of my magic is what had awoken him from his deep sleep.
I refuse to turn around and look at the man once more. I know that I will have to do so at some point, but I want to delay it as long as possible to spare my eyes from the torture.
"Shut up, you idiot. Just shut up!" I say, not wanting to hear the man's pathetic screeches as well. I could have dealt with the sight itself, but it was the suddenness and unexpectedness that startled me and gave me some trauma. Plus, it was a pretty horrific sight.
"WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS? JUST WHY- Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. Please don't do it, I beg you, please don't." Digby starts to quiver, I can hear it in his voice, and he suddenly changes his tune and starts to beg me for some reason, utterly different from the cursing he was doing a second ago. He is even talking at an average level, though I don't think that was conscious on his part.
"What the hell are you on about Digworth? Stop talking nonsense, and close your mouth." I say exasperatedly, tired from his mouth flapping and spewing nonsense, though I guess I can understand why he's doing it. Still, I am trying to come to terms with the sight I had just seen, and he isn't helping. It was so abrupt and- and- I really don't know how to describe it. I just never thought I would see such a sight.
"Oh my god, I regret it. I regret everything. I did it to all those women, the pureblooded and even the muggle ones, so that they at least served some purpose, even with some younger ones, but I had never done it to a man, never, and now it is going to be done to me. Is this payback? Are all of those souls cursing me from hell and forcing this fate upon me? No, no, no, please, Merlin, no." Digby begins to hyperventilate and mutter at insane speeds about stupid things, about women and children, both magical and muggle, and doing something to them, and now he is being punished for it. What has he done, and what does he think I am about to do to him?
"What are you going on about, man? Get a hold of yourself. I know you are trapped in that room against your will, but be a man and deal with it. You brought this upon yourself. And what did you do to those people that you think I am about to do to you?" So I honestly went over what he had said, and as I just asked him, I came up with some ideas, one in particular. But surely it can't be that he mentioned children after all, and you wouldn't do that to a child, would you?
"I-It's obvious what you are planning, you, YOU UNDRESSED ME AFTER ALL!!! YOU, YOU ARE GOING TO SODOMISE ME!!! YOU TRULY DO NOT DESERVE THE MAGICAL BLOOD THAT RUNS THROUGH YOUR VEINS! TO COMMIT SUCH A DESPICABLE ACT, TO DO SUCH A THING TO ANOTHER MAN, YOU ARE A STAIN ON YOUR WHORE MOTHER'S RECORD!!! DO NOT THINK YOU CAN DO THIS TO ME. I WILL GET OUT OF HERE AND KILL YOU, LOCKHART. I WIL-" I slam the door shut behind me, shocked and disgusted with what I had just heard.
My vanishing spell had turned out to be too powerful. I had either put too much magic into the spell, or I had visualised the result too hard or visualised something else. Either way, my magic not only got rid of the man's stains but also wholly removed all the things on him, including his clothes, leaving him naked on the chair.
Thankfully the rope and the chair did not disappear as well, and he remains strapped to it. So I guess I just visualised all of the filth in the room disappearing, and I did not count my own creations and chair as filth. Surprisingly, I also did not count Digby. D. Digworth as filth.
However, with the new knowledge I have just discovered, I now know that this putrid man was the filthiest thing in the room. I wish I had placed even more power into my spell and extinguished this horrid being from existence. But what's done is done, and I now have no reservations in how far I am willing to take my experimentations of magic on this creature. I am sure that his future existence will be much more deserved than simply being vanished out of existence. His victims will definitely enjoy him living under my direction more than him merely dying.
I am not a saint, not by any means, but I would not do what this man did. I know I am still just a sixteen-year-old, in mind, not body, and I have not lived enough, but I have the memories of Gilderoy Lockhart, and while I have partitioned them from my mind, they are still a part of me.
Gilderoy had never blackmailed or forced himself upon someone else. He lied, yes, he tricked, he seduced, and he manipulated, but he never forced, which means I did all of those things as well because I am Gilderoy Lockhart.
Alright, never mind all that. It is time to make a checklist. Number one is to figure out a way to clothe the naked bastard in the room behind me. Number two is to start feeding and giving the toad some water so that he can live longer, and I can experiment on him even more, which I will do after number one. I'm sure he can survive a few more days. It might hurt him, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
I don't really want to take the time to feed him or give him sustenance. Just thinking about it makes me feel disgusting, which is why I will leave thinking about that till after I deal with clothing the man, which is a problem in and of itself. I, again, could do this quite simply by going closer to him and doing the job myself, but I don't want to, and I certainly don't want to dress this man with my own hands. So when in doubt, deal with it with magic.
Going to my library, I began searching for a suitable spell to help me in my endeavour. Unfortunately, at this point, it seems like I will never get around to practising the magic in the black book.
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