Kapitel 32: CH32 - Clear Your Mind
As he lay in the center of a runic circle inscribed with magical chalk, Edmund activated the ritual. His mind immediately went blank as he lost control of all his bodily functions.
However, this time he was a lot less worried about the implications. The source of the ritual was not earthen magic, but rather a magical sacrifice he had made. The power within the sacrifice, aided by the conduit he had created, would flow into his mind and alter it forever. Since the power was transferring from one object to another, there was no leakage into the environment, which meant that none of the animals of the Forbidden Forest would be sent into a frenzy.
With the ritual being conducted at midday, no magical burst occurring, and the speaker guarding his body a mere ten feet away, Edmund felt infinitely safer compared to the last time he had been in the clearing.
And yet, he still felt anxious about the aftermath all the same.
The items he had chosen to sacrifice were the eyes of a wampus cat. The XXXXX beast was infamous for being highly dangerous and nearly impossible to kill. Although the creature was incredibly strong and fast, its nigh invincibility was owed more to the fact that it was only ever sighted once in a blue moon. For centuries, its existence had been deemed as nothing but a myth, so rare was its appearance. Although the indigenous communities in the Americas featured the wampus heavily in their folklore, it was only first publicly viewed in the 1700s. Isolt, one of the founders of Ilvermony Academy, had come across an abandoned kitten and raised it as a pet. When it had continued to grow increasingly larger, she had realized that her feline companion was not a kneazle, but something else entirely.
As it turned out, the wampus was as obscure as it was for a good reason. The mountainous cat's primary method of survival was its prodigious talents in legilimency and hypnosis. Whenever a wampus would sense danger nearby, it would escape long before it would come face to face with it. Furthermore, the few who managed to survive a wampus attack would only remember a bright pair of glowing yellow eyes, often misattributing the object of their memory as a werewolf.
So, wampus cats remained relatively safe from human hunters. Relatively was the key qualifier, given that Voldemort had managed to acquire a specimen despite the difficulties.
Accordingly, Edmund's second mind ritual was meant to both empower his legilimency and to give him a general perception of the beings near him and their emotions.
It would prove to be useful in multiple ways.
Hiding oneself from another's senses was relatively easy. While intangibility was not possible for normal humans, scent, sight, and hearing-blocking charms were comparatively common.
Mind-cloaking spells, however, were not. Those without occlumency would show up on Edmund's radar instantly, and even those with mental shields would unknowingly project waves of calmness and clarity. Humans were not the only ones that would be affected by his new capabilities. Animal minds would seem hazier to him depending on the complexity of their brains, but they would be detectable regardless.
Essentially, Edmund had negated the chances of being ambushed from within a considerable range. He was not trying to fool himself in any way. The plan was not foolproof, and Marvolo had warned him of that explicitly.
Magical titans like Voldemort and Dumbledore, and even talented wizards like Moody and Snape, would assuredly have ways to circumvent his ability. Unbeknownst to the dark lord, Edmund also had no doubt that Harry's invisibility cloak would counter any attempts at mind scanning.
Unfortunately, the ritual's extreme benefits came with equally unpleasant short-term side effects. Before he successfully mastered his mind-reading prowess, Edmund would have absolutely no control of it. His senses would feel overwhelmed for several days, and looking into anyone's eyes would subconsciously initiate legillimency.
Edmund had dismissed it as a problem for his future self, but that time was now the present.
His teeth finally unclenching, Edmund spat out the blood that had pooled in his mouth. As the magic slowly drained from his temples, he was left feeling ridiculously sensitive. His eyes felt itchy and almost alive as if they had a will of their own.
Peeling open his eyelids hesitantly, Edmund was surprised at how normal everything seemed to him. In the clearing, there was only him, the speaker directly behind him, a kestrel and its newly hatched offspring nesting in a tree to his right, and...
"Holy shit," Edmund gasped, instinctively covering his face with his hands.
It did him no good. His new sense had nothing to do with his eyes, and the lack of visual stimuli only seemed to make it stronger.
"It worked then?" the speaker rumbled lowly.
His brain instantly jumped to focus on the centaur, capturing her brain waves and overloading him with information.
Edmund hissed in pain, clutching his head furiously.
"Just give me a second," he reassured, palpably feeling the speaker's worry filling the air.
And that was no exaggeration. It was hard to explain, but the incoming data from his surroundings was being automatically translated into a deluge of sensations. The speaker's worry looked like a dirty yellow, letting off a pungent, acrid whiff, and leaving the barest of a sour aftertaste.
It was synesthesia on steroids, and it was debilitating to Edmund.
"This is going to take a lot longer than a few days to get used to," he gritted out.
"Oh?" the speaker questioned, her amusement flooding through Edmund's system like a tsunami. "Well, at least your occlumency expertise will experience a rapid jump. Perhaps if you had done the ritual during the holidays, your recovery would have been easier."
"The sacrifice was a wampus! Surely even you know the issues of obtaining such ingredients. The fact that the dark lord managed to get them at all is a miracle," Edmund retorted with a moan.
"Then, it matters little. You did the best you could, and you will be all the better for it," the speaker tried to cheer him up.
Unfortunately, Edmund could now dissect the centaur's true feelings, and it was harder to feel encouraged when he knew she was putting on a false front.
"Thanks," he replied anyway, appreciative of her efforts. "It doesn't feel like it right now, but I guess, no pain, no gain?"
He tried to smile, but it came out looking more like someone had a gun to his head.
The speaker chuckled genuinely then, shaking her head with laughter.
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The best possible method that Edmund could have adopted to allow the ritual to settle and accustom himself to it was isolation. The fewer people he allowed himself to be near, the lesser the chance of an inexplicable incident occurring.
He was well aware of that.
The plan had been to complete the ritual early Saturday morning and then spend the rest of the weekend in the Room of Requirement. Admittedly, it was a rather flawed plan. His friends would unquestionably worry about his disappearance, and that was not to mention the issue of meals. While the kitchens were an option, Edmund was convinced that being around house-elves would only exacerbate his headache.
There was no other option. He would have to face the music. Interaction with others was inevitable, and it was something he would have to accept.
Of course, he would still avoid social situations as much as he feasibly could. It was not uncommon for Edmund to become lost in his studies. Although it would irritate those close to him, they would not be surprised by his sudden desire for space.
However, all of Edmund's preparations were dismantled by an owl from McGonagall requesting his presence in her office. Given how eagerly he had accepted these invitations in the past, it would have been unbelievably odd for him to refuse now without a valid reason.
That was why Edmund found himself knocking on the Transfiguration classroom door to signal his arrival in the early afternoon, before stepping inside.
Like a rush, he was hit by McGonagall's presence. Surprisingly, it proved not to be as distracting as he had anticipated. The professor's emotions were almost unnaturally stable. She had recognized Edmund's presence for a brief second before her mind was occupied fully by her previous work once more. Her level of focus and concentration were admirable.
Edmund waited patiently, content to sit for a while.
When she finally looked up, Edmund was filled with a surge of warmth, and the world seemed almost rose-tinted for a moment. Her affection for him, while not visible on her face, was plain for Edmund to feel. It made him smile, prompting an upturn of McGonagall's lips in return.
Edmund steadfastly trained his gaze on her forehead, determined not to make a fool of himself. While McGonagall might not have been an authority in the mind arts, Edmund would be surprised if she at least was not proficient in them. As a skilled battle master and a member of the Order of the Pheonix, she undoubtedly knew how to guard her thoughts against her enemies.
His mind probe would smash against her defences like a brick if he allowed it to happen, and McGonagall would most certainly feel it.
"It has been a while since we met, Edmund," she greeted.
"It has. I've been practicing, though," he replied.
"Of that, I have no doubt," McGonagall stated. "Let's see how you have progressed, hmm?"
Edmund nodded in acceptance before the professor began again.
"This is a game Albus taught to me when I was his disciple, and I believe you are capable of benefitting from it now as well," she introduced. "Essentially, it is a competition."
McGonagall withdrew her wand, transfiguring a desk into a stone cube, empty from the bottom up. The hollowness inside was not uniform, instead forming an atypical sort of negative space.
"I will create a mould, like the one you see now. The outside will be a cube, but the inside will be irregularly shaped. It will be your job, within ten seconds, to fill the inside with transfigured material without damaging the original's integrity. Once the time is up, I will cast a spell that will tell me how much empty space still remains within the cube," she explained. "Then, we will switch roles. In the end, the contestant with the lower tally of empty space will be the winner."
Edmund cracked his knuckles, clenching and unclenching his hands repetitively in excitement.
"Bring it, professor," he smirked.
With a swish, McGonagall began. Upon sensing the object he needed to construct, Edmund rolled his eyes. It was a simple hemisphere, perfectly circular with no other complications.
It took him only one second out of the ten allotted to him to complete the task. As expected, the result was immaculate, and his total was still a perfect zero.
Deciding to taunt her for going easy on him, Edmund gave the professor an even easier challenge. He left a crevice forming another cube, proportionally the same as the mould, only smaller.
McGonagall huffed at the slight, before narrowing her eyes.
"Fine, we'll jump right in then," she declared.
Normally, Edmund would be unaffected by this. However, being able to sense the fire he had lit within her was a novelty, and it made him shiver.
The next mould he was presented with was considerably tougher. The core he needed to create was peculiar. There was no symmetry to it, nor were there any angles or smooth curves. It had a large central mass, with abstract 'tentacles' sticking out of it in all directions. If he had to describe it, Edmund would liken it to a massive three-dimensional amoeba, captured mid-movement.
It took him the entirety of the time given to finish, and he knew that the job was not perfectly done.
"It seems that you have left behind 240 millilitres of air within, Mr. Cole," she mocked with a sympathetic tone. "Perhaps I should pick something easier next time?"
Edmund frowned in concentration, deciding not to answer with words.
His next trial for her was less complex than the one he had completed, but it still made him smile widely. As she came to realize what the mould was meant to resemble, McGonagall's hands began to twitch, the closest the woman could come to being apoplectic. Edmund dismissed his own transfiguration, leaving behind a sculpture of McGonagall in her cat animagus form. The difference was, that the tabby was wearing the professor's spectacles and witch's hat while licking a ball of catnip.
Edmund laughed and laughed, even as McGonagall threw increasingly ludicrous problems his way.
At the end of the lesson, McGonagall won the competition handily, but Edmund truly felt that he had been the real victor.
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
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Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
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