章節 28: 28 External
Back when Lucas arrived at the hospital wing.
Without a sound Dumbeldore appeared in his office "Accio sorting hat" he yelled.
The sorting hat flew from one of the shelves into his outstreched hand. He meticulously turned the hat around so he could look into its eyes. "What did you see when you sorted Lucas Foster?"
The hat remained silent, refusing to divulge what it had seen. But Dumbledore couldn't have that, he wanted to know, no, he needed to know.
So without an audible pop they disappeared, leaving the empty office behind.
Somewhere in the dungeon.
From a twist in space the headmaster emerged with the hat in hand.
"Severus, I need you."
Snape, who was about to start brewing some potions, put down the bottle containing a glowing liquid and faced the old man. He assumed it was either urgent or of utmost importance, so questions could wait till after "What can I help you with."
Dumbledore held up the hat for Snape to clearly see what he had brought with him.
"I see. Who?" Although the potionmaster knew it was a violation of student rights, he trusted Dumbledore's assessment of what needed to be done.
"Lucas Foster."
A slight surprise was visible on Snape's face. He didn't know what changed Dumbledore's mind that he would resort to such drastic measures.
Seeing the doubt in his face Dumbledore reassured him "Severus, believe me, I also don't want to do this, but we have no other option. The future of Hogwarts is on the line."
Steeling his resolve Snape took the hat and fully concentrated on the task at hand.
But before he could invade the hat's mind, it hurriedly said "Wait, wait, wait, I will talk. I will talk. You don't have to damage my precious fabric to get the information you want."
Snape looked away from the hat towards Dumbledore, who nodded. Turning back to the hat he said "I still need to verify, whether or not you are speaking the truth" with that he attacked the hat's open defences, just enough to be able to differentiate between the truth and a lie.
The hat winced as it felt a hole getting poked into his mind, followed by a connection that only went one way.
"You may talk now." said Snape, while Dumbledore took a step closer.
"What did you see in Mr Foster?"
"Lucas Foster, a stellar young man with enough potential to rival the greatest of wizards and witches. I put him into Hufflepuff for one simple reason.
Loneliness.
The first thing I saw when I sat atop his head was a desire for power, but beneath that was an even bigger desire for connections, for love. A desire he didn't even know he had. That's why I put him into Hufflepuff, he subconsciously wanted to go there.
My second option would have been Slytherin, but even though he would most likely have grown even stronger and faster there, he would have had to discard his other wish. He would have been worse than Tom in Slytherin, because his desire would have twisted into control.
He would not have 'grown' he would have corrupted, resulting in him enslaving the people around him and living his life isolated from everyone else, scared of letting anyone out of his control."
Although it was good news, it wasn't enough for Dumbledore. He wanted reassurance that Lucas wouldn't endanger his plans with Potter, much less turn into another dark lord. So before popping away he said his goodbyes, "Thanks Severus."
It was time to focus on Lucas and concoct plans focusing on him. He had enough time for everything, because the winter break had yet to come.
But before doing that he popped one last time into the hospital wing and made some changes. With a flick of his wand the wall in the deepest corner of the room opened up, revealing a new empty room. Another flick and a single bed manifested in there, he couldn't leave Lucas out here, the boy would somehow passively attack anyone who entered this room and it also made it easier to observe who cared abour him. Oh, Dumbledore did not stop at that, no he also created a new ward at the entrance that would take note of every person who entered. Now he had done everything.
He was aware that Madam Pomfrey neither knew Occlumency nor Legilimency, he hired her especially because of that. It was a risk exposing her to Lucas' weird aura of Legilimency, but one he was willing to take if it meant he would learn something about it. He could always hire a new matron, but stumbling upon something he didn't know was rare.
----
Back to the two girls.
Daphne and Tracey exchanged tense glances. "Why didn't you tell me he was a Legilimens?" Daphne's voice held a mixture of betrayal and curiosity.
"I didn't know," Tracey replied honestly. "I mean, I met him in the Great Hall after Draco said ... Draco things. And honestly, I didn't notice anything, much less that he used Legilimency on me."
Daphne's brow furrowed as she thought it over. "I believe you, but just to be sure we should talk with Snape. My father told me I should seek him out when I have a question about mind magic."
"About that, he was there on that day. He saw me leave the Great Hall," Tracey said quickly "and he didn't say anything, so I think Lucas did nothing to me."
Daphne nodded slowly, seeing the logic in Tracey's words. "You might be right. Still, I'll write to my father and we should be careful around him, after all we don't really know him."
----
A few hours later.
"You heard, there was another attack."
"Who was it?"
"Oh poor soul, who was it this time."
Rumours spread fast in the castle, Hannah and Susan were already bombarded by them, when they walked to the Great Hall in the morning.
Of course Hannah started to eavesdrop on the ongoing conversations when they arrived there, it was the most interesting event that had happened in the castle for a while.
"I heard it was a Hufflepuff."
"Yeah, I heard it was a boy."
But before she could get anything conclusive an arrogant voice rang out from the entrance door. "That's right, if you ask me all Hufflepuffs deserve to be thrown out."
Hannah rolled her eyes, even without looking she knew exactly who it was. "Draco, don't you think that is a little bit over the top."
"Well if it isn't the two blood traitors. How is your father?" Draco said as his clique started to laugh, knowing full well that Hannah's father had died during the first wizarding war. "And how about you, mudface?"
Susan, who was already insecure about her freckles couldn't even get a word out. Hannah's face turned red out of rage, but before she could start Draco continued.
"Well, I heard something intersting earlier. That mudblood you like to hang out with, he was the one who got hit. If you ask me he deserved it. He was lucky he got into Hogwarts in the first place."
The moment they figured out who Draco meant, Hannah and Susan stopped listening to him. They bolted out of the great hall and sprinted to the hospital wing.
"And there they go, like rabbit dogs. You just need to know how to rile them up. Truly a disgrace for members of noble houses."
„Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha"
----
*KNOCK* *KNOCK*
"CALM DOWN, I am coming." Madam Pomfrey yelled at the people hammering at her door. Once she opened it she saw two distressed girls panting. "What has gotten into you two."
"Is it true?" Hannah said through laboured breaths.
"Is what true?" The matron was confused, she hadn't even officially opened the hospital wing for today and she didn't remember any patients warranting such reactions.
"Lucas, Lucas Foster. Is he here?"
"First of all calm down, I can't have you disturb my patients. Afterwards I can lead you to him."
"So he is here."
"Yes, he was brought here earlier this morning."
A few minutes later the two girls had composed themselves and Madam Pomfrey lead them into the new room.
As both of them were Occlumenses, they immediately felt the wave of Legilimency clash with their shield when they entered that small secluded chamber. After reinfocing their shields and fully focusing on defence, they quickly looked around, searching for the origin of this attack, but upon finding no one else present their eyes eventually landed on Lucas.
Shortly exchanging a confused glance, they looking at Madam Pomfrey, who untroubledly tended to the petrified body of Lucas, like nothing ever happened.
They were speechless, because the magnitude of the attack was comparable to what their teacher had used on them at the end of their training in the mind arts and if that was the power he released subconsciously then they didn't want to know what he was truly capable of.
They would only think about that later, what currently went through both girl's heads was 'He is a Legilimens!!! What the hell!!!'
Hannah was brought out of her stupor when the matron informed them that everything was alright with Lucas and that she would leave them alone with him.
Thankfully it was easier to shield against a constant stream of Legilimency, if Lucas had realeased it in burst or concentrated it, then their defences would have already crumbled at this point.
Hannah's eyebrows knitted together in a mixture of frustration and hatred. She had a million questions buzzing in her mind, but for the moment, her priority was to get out of there.
She grabbed Susan's hand, who still stared at Lucas' frozen body, lost in thought, and dragged her out of the room.
Once they were back outside the doorless doorframe, she felt the strain on her mental shields disappearing.
"What the fuck, why is someone like that here?" Hannah mumbled, her voice a hushed whisper. Only now did she look at Susan, noticing that she was still staring at Lucas. She grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her as hard as she could, which worked, as Susan looked away into her own eyes.
"Everything alright?" she asked worriedly.
Susan nodded slowly, her gaze wandering back into the room, but before that could happen Hannah turned her back, so that she was facing her again. "What are you doing? Don't you know what they can do?"
The freckled girl absent-mindedly looked at her friend, before slowly nodding. She was slowly coming back to reality.
"Let's go!" Hannah commanded in a stern tone, while grabbing Susan's hand and forcefully dragging her out of the hospital wing. "I don't want to be here any longer than I have to be."
"Ouch, Hannah! It hurts." Susan cried out as she tried to free herself of her firends grip, once her mind fully found its way back into reality.
They were already in the outside corridor, so Hannah let go. Susan rubbed her reddened wrist, pouting. "Why did you do that?"
"Because, ... " Hannah began strong, but her voice turned soft when she saw Susan's hurt expression "Because of my dad."
Susan apologised softly, knowing it was a sore spot for her, "I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Let's get some breakfast." Hannah changed the subject, not wanting to talk about it.
The freckled Hufflepuff looked back thinking 'Was this all fake, all along?'
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