Harry had another great birthday party in July. It wasn’t quite as big as last year, but it was still a lot of fun for him. He had been trying to talk to Ginny a little more as she seemed close with Hermione. It was a little stilted conversation, but Harry did his best and Ginny didn’t seem to mind it too much.
Fred and George were a little distant from Harry and especially Hermione. They understood why she had done it, but she had still spilled the secret of their map to the authorities. Luckily for them Sirius Black was the official owner so after a little while it was eventually handed back to him. But now that it was a known quantity that most of the students knew about it wouldn’t be nearly as useful to them. And there was the small fact that the Ministry had ordered Sirius Black to not allow it to return to Hogwarts if he could help it so he wouldn't be giving it back to them anyway. Harry was part of the betrayal because he had told Hermione about the map without getting the twins permission first.
Hermione had agreed with Harry that they were being unreasonable. Obviously catching Peter Pettigrew was more important than them losing their map, but the twins didn’t seem to totally agree.
But at the same time they talked about Sirius Black with worshipful faces and hushed words. Apparently they had visited him a few times and Sirius Black had instantly become their favorite person by telling them about some of the pranks he had done when he was in school.
Mrs. Weasley did not approve.
In late June, Mind Harry had been busy at work and had actually completed filling the first mountain in the mindscape. That’s right, every wall of the place was filled with carvings representing Harry’s memories. With no more wall space, Mind Harry had been stumped for a few days, but after reviewing the texts on Occlumency it became apparent that Harry would have to use a more advanced technique to fix the problem.
Sitting cross legged on the Longbottoms lawn with his eyes closed, Body Harry had shifted his magic in his brain to a particular pattern and his mindscape instantly softened and details began to be washed away. Body Harry focused on the mindscape and held every detail of its current form firm in his mind and stopped the decay. This was one of the largest reasons why most people chose to create small mindscapes, for them this kind of remodeling would lead to all their prior work bleed together and disappear.
While the Mindscape was malleable, Mind Harry went to work and began constructing another city twice the size of the last one. This time he made sure to incorporate a greco-roman architecture throughout the whole thing. Big pillars and swooping archways, even the occasional indent for statues while still keeping the same sandstone as before as the actual material for them.
After an hour, Mind Harry finished the structure. Body Harry reached out and stabilized this floating city as well, beginning to pant in exertion as his eyes remained firmly closed.
Mind Harry flew off and created another sandstone mountain four times the size of the original. For this one, Mind Harry was inspired by an anthill rather than human architecture. Twisting tunnels and cave-like chambers merged with the modern and ancient style houses that Mind Harry had already created before. It took another three hours to finish this one and it was far more complicated than the others.
Body Harry was breathing heavily and sweat poured down his face as he struggled to keep all the details stable as Mind Harry worked on the creative vision.
But finally, Mind Harry was done. He had created enough wall space for Harry’s current memories twice over and Harry shouldn’t have to do this again for a while.
Body Harry quickly shifted the magic in his brain in another pattern and after another moment, Harry’s mindscape solidified again. Body Harry let out a gasp of relief and slumped to press his face to the grass, exhausted from his task.
Mind Harry stood inside the Greco-Roman city and realized that now the mindscape was solidified that he couldn’t fly as easily anymore. So using his will he brought the three mountains close to one another so that at some points they appeared to be barely ten meters away from each other. Then he started creating bridges to anchor them together. Rope bridges, ladders, stone archways, all sorts of variations connecting each of the cities to one another.
Body Harry was long asleep before Mind Harry finished thoroughly connecting the cities together to his satisfaction.
Mind Harry turned to the greco-Roman section and returned to carving the walls with the memories. But Mind Harry made sure the carvings were more refined and several were inlaid with gold or silver to give a wealthier appearance. The furniture was made similarly extravagant, and Mind Harry had a lot of fun creating the statues in various poses as he continued carving the memories into the walls over the next week. He even made one of Draco Kowtowing to him, an absolutely humiliated look on his face.
Heh.
Although one of the statues that Mind Harry made was so funny that it made Body Harry giggle involuntarily at the dinner table with the Longbottoms. He had made a statue of Professor Snape but in a bodybuilder pose and bulging muscles on his arms and legs. But his face was locked in his classic haughty expression when someone did particularly bad on a potion, and the statue was still in the man’s classic black robes. When he told the Longbottoms about it, Neville had laughed too. It was just so different to how the man looked in real life.
But besides those little distractions, Mind Harry was busy at work. Harry wondered how many years this would have taken him if he didn’t have the second part of himself working nonstop on the mindscape. Mind Harry’s work ethic was ridiculous, he didn’t even sleep with his only breaks taking a few minutes to admire his work every once in a while.
That brought Harry to July a week after his birthday party. Mind Harry was nearly done, and in a few minutes, he would finish up everything. Mind Harry was good enough at carving by now that sometimes he finished his carvings and altered a room to his liking in seconds before moving onwards. The Greco-Roman city was two thirds the way filled by now, with the third largest city completely untouched so far.
Mind Harry finished. Both Harry’s took a deep breath. Now it was time for the final step. It would make all the changes he had made become even more firm and automatically add new memories to the mindscape using the examples provided to it by the process Harry had been doing for over a month. Harry thought it would be very effective given the pure volume of carvings it had available to it. But if Mind Harry didn’t like it he could instruct it to customize how he wanted any new memories to manifest in the mindscape. Or at least that's what the book said. After that Harry’s mindscape would be mostly finalized and he could begin the actual defense of his mind.
Harry made his magic flow in the way outlined in the book and when he was done a resounding boom shook the mindscape, and it suddenly became sharper and more anchored in reality than even how it had before. It was complete.
Harry tried creating a classic occlumency shield and it was strangely difficult. It drained his magic intensely, probably because his shield had to cover such a large region of his massive mindscape. So Harry used the next best method. Denizens. They were considered high level magic, but from what Harry had read most of the occlumency methods in current use were optimized for tiny mindscapes where covering the whole thing was not overly draining on ones magic. Harry had timed it and even with his high amount of magic he could barely hold a normal occlumency shield for more than thirty minutes before exhausting himself completely. And even then it was weak since it was so big, even Harry as a beginner could tell that.
So, Denizens. Simple mental constructs that wandered around and hunted for intruders. The constructs were part of the mindscape and only used Harry’s magic when they started battling an intruder, using that magic to become more ‘real’ so they could deal damage when they detected an intruder. Harry decided that most of the remaining city would be used to house their ‘spawn points’. Much like a memory, each construct required a specialized carving to survive and act independently. If those carvings were destroyed, then so was the construct.
After considering the problem, Harry decided to create several ‘spawn points’ for the constructs scattered evenly through the two cities containing his memories. If a construct died in battle they would regenerate at their carvings after a little while, creating a never ending wave of enemies if you created enough of them. The final almost empty and largest city would contain the stronger constructs Harry would design in the future as well as another large army of normal constructs for good measure. For the appearance, Harry chose for them to be Coatls, or snakes with a large set of wings.
Mind Harry created the carvings to animate construct after construct and the skies and open spaces of Harry’s mindscape slowly began to fill with flocks of the Coatls hunting for intruders. Harry looked over his mindscape again. They were so cool, everyone should learn to do things like this just for the entertainment alone. Mind Harry stretched theatrically before getting back to work. Time to create some more Coatls.
— — —
“Harry? Are you alright out there?” Alice called, “Working on your mindscape again?”
Harry sat up. Mind Harry was still working on more constructs, but it was just busy work by now. All the spawn locations on the cities containing Harry’s memories were already chosen. Mind Harry just had to go around and keep creating them. Harry was currently at about the half of the total constructs as he had planned to activate by the end of the project.
“Yes, Alice,” Body Harry said, “I just had to finish up some detailed work, I shouldn’t have to meditate so much now that I’ve gotten things to a good enough level.”
“Well, that's good,” Alice said, “Are you ready for the Quidditch world cup tomorrow? It is one of the biggest sporting events of the decade. I’m sure Neville has told you all about it…”
“Yes, it could be fun,” Harry said thoughtfully, “I’ve never seen the professionals play before. Or been to a game this big. I’m sure Neville and Ron will love it.”
“Yes, those boys are obsessed with Quidditch aren’t they?” Alice said, “I’m just glad it's happening in Britain this time. It’s been more than five years since they hosted the last one here. I’m just glad the Weasleys offered to share their tent and space. You have no idea how hard it is to find a spot as good as the one he’s got. Must be a perk of his position now. With Dumbledore gone he’s one of the main leaders of the light faction of the Ministry.”
“Huh,” Harry replied. He hadn’t realized that Mr. Weasley was so influential.
— — —
“So, here it is!” Mr. Weasley said proudly as he pointed to a raggedy old tent that looked like it wouldn’t fit more than two people. Harry glanced around to the four of them and thought about Mr. Weasley’s own massive family. What was going on? “Borrowed it from a friend from work,” Mr. Weasley continued as he ducked inside.
He pulled back the flap and Harry saw that it was massive on the inside, looking like a full apartment rather than a tent. Harry and the others ducked inside and were greeted by all the Weasleys and Hermione. The actual game would be tomorrow but everyone wanted to come early to beat the rush. They had come here together through a portkey. An enchanted object that had teleported them just outside the event grounds as soon as they touched it as a group.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Everyone had their little plots on the massive field grounds to set up their tents. It was owned by a family of muggles and they appeared to have been charmed by the ministry as no one appeared to be restricting their magic. Small kids rode around on little broomsticks that flew just off the ground, and many of the tents were held up in the air in seemingly impossible shapes by enchantments or series of spells. Vendors with bags bursting full wandered around selling various obviously magical items to the witches and wizards milling around the area.
Harry and the Longbottoms quickly settled into their own corner of the tent. Ron and Neville quickly began talking about their favorite quidditch players. Ron seemed obsessed over Victor Krum, a student at Durmstrang that was one of the youngest seeker in generations on the pro team for the Bulgarians. It was the Bulgarians vs. the Irish, and everyone carried little flags or gear that was red or green to indicate which team they supported.
Harry didn’t particularly care about any of it, but nodded politely when Neville or Ron addressed him in the middle of their deep discussion on the best players for each team.
— — —
The next day, they stood in the top box watching the roaring crowds below. Arthur Weasley really must be important politically to get seats this good. Lucius had tried to provoke Mr. Weasley by calling him poor as they walked up, but Mr. Weasley hadn’t risen to the bait and had just ignored the blonde haired man. Harry eyed the blonde haired man carefully and noticed Lucius eying him too. Harry had to think of a way to make him pay for hurting Hermione. But what was a proportional response and how to not get caught? Hmmmm. Well, he couldn’t do anything right now anyway. He would think about it later.
The game hadn’t even started yet and the crowds were already getting excited. The Minister and an unfamiliar man in fancy robes stood in the center. With two seats larger than normal. Minister Fudge zeroed in on Harry the instant he spotted him. He took a few steps away from his seat and stepped forward.
“Harry Potter! I hadn’t realized you would be here today,” Fudge said jovially, “Your first professional quidditch match, ey? Lots of excitement for this one, I’m sure you’ll have a great time. I was glad to hear you had recovered from the werewolf’s claws and are not infected. That would have been a tragedy.”
“Would I have been in trouble if I had been infected?” Harry asked curiously. He knew all the adults seemed to not like werewolves very much, but he was interested in what the Minister had to say.
Fudge coughed, “Well, that’s… Luckily we don’t even have to consider it anymore. I’m just glad that its all over.”
The silent man in fancy robes approached from behind and stepped out to stand at Minister Fudge's side.
“Ah, this is the Bulgarian Minister of Magic,” Fudge said, “He doesn’t speak English, but I’m sure we can call a translator. Dolores…”
“Harry Potter,” the Bulgarian Minister of Magic rumbled out, “A pleasure to meet you. I have heard much of the trials you have faced. Is it true you have healed the Cruciatus curse by yourself?”
Fudge looked at the man like he’d sprouted another head, “You could speak this whole time? And you just watched me fumble through my terrible Bulgarian?”
The Bulgarian Minister huffed and glanced back at Fudge, “It was very funny,” he rumbled, “You have told me that the donkeys in this country are wonderful several times. One gets entertainment when one can.”
He turned back to Harry, “So, is it true? There were no potions or the like?”
Fudge stepped forward so he was between the Bulgarian Minister and Harry. “Now see here, Vladimir,” Fudge said, “You know that’s off limits. He did so with ministry approval and assistance. Don’t go trying to circumvent procedure now.”
Vladimir shrugged, “Ah, I assumed Harry could speak for himself. But I see the Ministry has a tight grip on its golden goose. Shall we get back to our seats, Fudge?”
Fudge nodded tightly, “Sounds good, Vladimir.”
The two men walked off eying each other warily, barely seeming to remember that Harry was still standing there. After a moment, Harry shrugged and made his way to his seat. It was almost time for them to start.
It started with the Bulgarian cheerleaders. They were led by a group of women known as Veela. Their ancestors had performed a ritual on themselves long ago to infuse magic into their voices. The women on the field began singing their chants and Mr. Weasley, Ron, and Neville got glassy eyed looks and started cheering loudly for Bulgaria. The other men in the compartment had a reaction but visibly suppressed it.
The crowd was not so subdued. All the men in the stands, even those wearing the green for Ireland, went wild cheering for Bulgaria as they all seemed enthralled by the Veela’s magical voices. The women were unaffected. Mr. Weasley was calmed down by a hard pinch in the side by his embarrassed wife, but Ron and Neville continued to cheer for the Veelas loudly. Harry shared a look with Hermione who seemed surprised that Harry was so calm.
The enthralled men in the stands nearly started a riot as the closest tried to charge onto the pitch to profess their love for the Veela singing. But they were handled by wizarding security and the wards, so the Veelas finished their performance with a human pyramid then all floated lightly to the ground, bowing to the audience, and leaving.
Ireland followed with fireworks that launched into the sky and summoned a giant green outline of a dancing leprechaun in the sky. There was a whole series of charmed fireworks all with various leprechauns and pots of gold. Harry thought the magic spells themselves were mildly interesting but the creativity of the actual show and how they were used was pretty low.
Then gold Galleons began literally raining from the sky after the grand finale. Harry stepped forward to a coin that fell on the edge of the balcony. He picked it up and inspected it suspiciously as Neville and the Weasley boys began scooping a few off the floor in glee. Lucius Malfoy sneered at them as they scrabbled on the floor. Harry turned around the coin in his hands and then put it up to his mouth and gave it a big long lick with his tongue. Hagrid had told him about this trick once after one of the lessons with the nifflers. Harry felt his tongue tingle, yep. That was it.
He turned back around and saw that everyone was staring at him like he was a madman, even the two ministers.
“Leprechaun's Gold,” Harry stated loudly, “It doesn’t taste like metal, it should disappear in a day or two at least based on how much my tongue is tingling.”
Fred and George especially looked very disappointed, and the Bulgarian minister chuckled slightly as his face changed to realization. “Ah, the taste test,” He said, “My grandfather could tell the time down to the hour. A classic for the ages and the man wouldn't accept payment without testing it first.”
“Ah! Indeed,” Fudge added, trying to appear knowledgeable. But Harry could tell that he was confused about it.
The quidditch players from both teams started parading around the pitch. After a few minutes, Fudge stepped forward and gave a speech after amplifying his voice with a spell, holding his wand to his own throat.
Then the game began.
— — —
Ireland won the game. Victor Krum the young Bulgarian Seeker, caught the snitch, but Ireland had scored so many ten point goals that not even the one hundred and fifty points from the snitch let Bulgaria win. Ron was a huge fan of Victor Krum and was cheering wildly as he caught the snitch even as the seeker lost the game for Bulgaria. Krum was nineteen and one of the youngest seekers alive to play for the professional national team. The final score was 170 Ireland to 160 Bulgaria. The stands went wild, and after a little while everyone went to leave the two Ministers going first.
They all walked down the stairwell in a big group, the two ministers leading the way.
“You Weasleys sure are desperate for money aren’t you?” Lucius Malfoy drawled towards Mr. Weasley as the group reached the bottom floor, “Literally scrambling on the floor for Leprechaun’s gold, tut, tut.”
“Lucius,” Minister Fudge said sharply turning around for an instant, “Play nice now, we’re here for the sport not for politics. I think I can confidently say we all get far too much of that back at work.”
Lucius slightly inclined his head, “Apologies, Minister. As you say,” he said before Fudge looked back forward seemingly considering the matter resolved.
Ireland celebrated wildly, the people in the telltale green gear running around and shouting and casting little green firework spells into the air.
They all made it back into the tent for the night and spread out to celebrate in their little area of tents. The adults made sure to stress on them to not stray too far from where they could see them. It really was chaos around them and even in the best circumstances they might just get lost when they tried to come back.
It was dark now and the celebrations were still loud and ongoing.
Suddenly there were several loud bangs and screams in the distance and Harry perked up. Were the Irish and Bulgarian fans getting in a fight again?
But it was getting louder and louder over time and the screaming grew louder. People began running towards Harry, Neville, and Ron. Hermione had gone off with Fred, George, and Ginny in the other direction.
The panicked mass of people rushed to run past the group away from the growing noise ahead of them. Harry was quickly shoved by the crowd and in seconds he was isolated from his friends by the mob.
Harry tried to shove his way back in their direction, but they weren’t there where he had left them. They must have been carried away too. The crowd was beginning to thin and Harry could see what was causing the commotion. A group of ten figures in black hooded robes marched in the center of the row of tents. Their hoods were long and pointy and they all wore silvery masks depicting a skull on them. Occasionally one of them would shoot a blast of flame into one of the nearby tents, setting it aflame and floating above them were a man, woman, and two small children. The muggles who ran the park that they were staying at. The family was thrashing in pain and screaming pitifully as the hooded figures cast the occasional spell at them and laughed.
Harry looked around in disbelief as he saw the backs of hundreds of witches and wizards retreating from the ten robed figures. Maybe Salazar was onto something when he was saying how useless and idiotic modern wizards were! Harry couldn’t leave those muggles to be tortured, and since there was no one else nearby, it seems he would be the one to do it.
Hopefully the muggles would forgive Harry for what he was about to do. But he had the perfect spell just for this scenario. Harry pointed his wand at the cloaked figures that seemed to be chanting something together.
‘Dolor Turbae Maxima,’ Harry cast silently at the group making sure to catch all of them in the radius.
Immediately the entire group of cloaked figures fell to the ground, crying out in pain. While the Cruciatus curse targeted the soul, this spell targeted the body and brain. The muggles fell limp to the ground on top of the heap of cloaked figures, still thrashing as they were caught in Harry's spell as well.
‘Accio girl,’ Harry chanted and the little girl flew through the air towards him until she rested at his feet, moaning and crying softly.
Several of the cloaked figures started moving again recovering quickly. The spell only lasted so long.
‘Dolor Turbae Maxima,’ Harry cast again and everyone in the pile began to scream and twitch in pain again.
‘Accio boy,’ the little boy came shooting over and landed on top of the girl.
‘Accio woman,’ Harry risked and one of the cloaked figure managed to cast a counterspell at Harry, pointing their wand up from the ground. Harry ducked and cast his spell again.
‘Dolor Turbae Maxima’
All the cloaked figures screamed and two had even fallen unconscious. The muggle man was still screaming in pain from Harry’s spells.
‘Dolor Turbae Maxima’
‘Dolor Turbae Maxima’
‘Accio man’
The now unconscious muggle man came flying limp through the air and landed limp in front of his wife who was beginning to uncurl and slightly come to her senses. Now that the innocents were out of the line of fire, Harry summoned all his rage, all his anger at the people who would do things like this. He let it build for a few seconds as the twitching men in robes seemed to slowly come to their senses.
“Incendio Diabolica!”
A wave of black flames washed out from the tip of Harry’s wand towards the group of figures on the ground. Harry saw their eyes widen as they realized what Harry had cast at them.
“Retreat!” one man shouted and grabbed one of the unconscious ones and disappeared in the signature crack of an apparition. All the rest did the same before Harry’s spell reached them, except for one man in the front. Harry saw his entire front engulfed in the black flames before he disappeared, taking the flames near his body with him as he did so.
Harry let out a heavy breath and panted slightly. He had spent a lot of his magic to keep up that barrage of spells.
“Good job, kid,” Harry heard from behind him. He turned around and his eyes widened as he saw the blonde haired wizard that had captured him last summer, “You did good,” he finished as Harry’s world finished with red light and he fell to the ground unconscious.
Mind Harry was furious, but there was nothing he could do with the body unconscious. Unable to help, Mind Harry reluctantly turned back to his task. He needed to make sure he created as many Coatls constructs as possible before his kidnappers brought him back to the Dursleys. And rearrange the memories so the most important were well protected, who knew if they would try mind altering spells this time?
Mind Harry had to be ready and prepare for an assault of the Mindspace soon, he only had a little time to get things ready.