«I did it! I did it!», I yell out into the darkness, rejoicing. The emotions that overwhelmed me demand some kind of exit; that’s why now I scream, throwing them out, completely ignoring the fact that my scream is silent.
Having shouted to my heart’s content, I easily dismiss the unpleasant thought that immediately arises. I don’t want to strain because I have woken up not in the body, as I wanted, but out here in the middle of nowhere. I can’t change this in any way; that’s why I strain, or rather, I don’t want to strain; but nobody wants to know my opinion about this situation.
Not now, just not now. I say this rigidly to myself, thereby suppressing the animal terror that has recently arisen at its root. I'll think about it later. At the moment, I intend to rejoice in my small victory, and nothing should spoil my mood.
«What could you do?» you’ll ask me. «Whom have you won?»
«What could I do? It’s very simple! I wanted to think calmly so that nothing could distract me from it. And there’s something to think about; I’ve accumulated so many questions I want an answer to.
Why couldn't I wake up in the body? For what possible reason are these memories shown to me so persistently? What’s really going on with me? And why the memories of this particular person ... or, it will be more correct to say, a mage? Is the mage a human? Or the correct question is, can a human be a magician? He probably can. All right, that’s it! I’m on the wrong track.
Now, where was I? Right! I remember! I also wanted to understand, in case this works out, the duality that appeared in me. Because it scares me that in the same situation I simultaneously have, on the one hand, the reaction of a young twerp and, on the other, the reaction of a grown man, a man of wisdom.
If I can somehow understand the reaction of an adult and where it comes from, if I to start out with the assumption that Harry's memories are mine, then where the reaction of a young body comes from, it definitely bewilders me.
«You asked whom I won? My answer is, I don’t know. Before that, it was like this: my consciousness abruptly turned off against my will, and I descended into darkness. And then, having just emerged from the darkness and not having time to come around, I started watching Harry Potter memories again. And then I was forced to throw all my strength only at collecting and remembering as much information received as possible.»
It seems I’ve calmed down a bit while answering your questions. The euphoria is gone, so now I can safely start brain activity. Though it’s impossible to understand everything I want, but I hope, at least somewhat, I’ll be able to do so.
During this time, I learned a lot of interesting things about Harry.
After his son’s departure, Harry began to put his affairs and set papers in order. Looking at him, one could have thought that he was preparing to go to war rather than reveal the secret to his son.
The work with papers Harry alternated the work in his workshop with some artefacts, and in between these, he made visits to friends and few of his neighbours to warn them that he was going to immerse himself in research again. Therefore, they shouldn’t lose him because he would lock himself in his laboratory with his son without being distracted by anything extraneous.
The most difficult thing for me was to understand why, for almost all acquaintances and neighbours, Harry was not Harrison James Potter but Herbert Jerry Parker. From fragmentary information, it became clear that this was a pseudonym magically assigned to him, under which he lived for a long time. But the reasons for such a decision I wasn’t able to identify.
The more memories I watched, the more I was inclined to the fact that the guess expressed at the moment of desperation was correct. Harry Potter was my last incarnation.
«What makes you think so?» you might ask.
Some details point to this, albeit indirectly. Here is, for example, one of them: If it weren’t the memories of my last life, then why, in this case, was I shown so many personal memories of Harry, such as eating or taking a shower… and others …that were more intimate?
The turning point in favour of this version was the memory of Harry’s meeting with the woman named Hermione.
«I don’t know, Harry», said Hermione, leaning her head to one side, examining Harry with squinty eyes.
«I cannot help but think that there's something you're not telling me, and this «something» is a lot of information. I understand that you did this with the best intentions, so I won’t worry in vain. Right?»
To this Harry keeps silent, looking down.
«It means I’m right,» she sums up with a sad smile. «But, Harry, this time,» she’s said leaning towards «Your plan seems full of danger.»
«Hermione, when did you become so shrewd?» Looking at her with respect, he asks.
«When I allowed myself to get in touch with you the second time…»and they both laughed.
Laughing off Hermione becomes serious again and, with her arms folded, pronounces.
«You won’t fool me, Harrison James Potter.»
«I didn’t even try, believe me!»
She arouses a sense of recognition; it seems that I need to exert myself a little more, and I’ll remember it.
I don’t believe they’re together; there’s no chemistry between them. Most likely, they’re only friends.
What’s that about?
I said this because only a woman for whom you feel passion can arouse a sense of recognition.
I think not! It seems to me they share more complex relations than pleasures of the flesh.
He’s an idiot! Instead of talking with her, he’d better…
Enough!
Come on! I can’t joke?
Shut up, bastard!
Ok, ok! Hold your fire, grandpa, or you’ll have a heart attack. Hi-hi.
Rrrr…
Hi-hi. Ok, I’ll stop talking.
«Well, Hermione, if you’re asking,» Harry has said, giving up after a short pause during which Hermione shows her firmness in pursuit of the truth. «Then I can reveal the secret to you too; only there’s one condition: if you first sign a magical non-disclosure agreement.»
«Can I think about it?» she asks anxiously, immediately losing ground; the condition under which she has to sign a non-disclosure agreement is something she doesn’t like at all.
«Yes, you can think until Alrus returns having settled all his affairs, and now you must swear to me that you’ll never tell anyone in any other way that I have a secret.»
«Even like this?» she wonders and shakes her head. «In this case, I don’t want to know this secret; I feel fear because of it.»
«And this is the right choice, Hermione,» Harry supports her. «I don’t want your life to be even in illusory danger because of a simple curiosity.»
She again shakes her head and then, having thought, says.
«You can’t even imagine how I want to know your secret. And all because of a feeling that the knowledge of this secret will open for me the opportunity to receive many new books and knowledge.»
Harry, as best as he can, tries to stay calm after her words because she is absolutely right that books and knowledge of other worlds will be at her disposal if she gives in to temptation. Hermione, not noticing how Harry is getting tense or pretending -it doesn't matter- turns in upon herself. He's been thinking about how she's changed over the years.
Not having noticed how Harry has tensed or is pretending – it’s not important- Hermione plunges in herself. How she’s changed through these years – he’s thinking meanwhile. She’s become softer, developed her intuition, and, what’s the most unbelievable, she began to listen to her feelings. But then she roused from deep abstraction and continued in a firm voice:
«It happens that over the years I’ve learned to trust my feelings and intuition, and they shout to me that I shouldn’t mess with your secret even if I receive new books and knowledge. That’s why I’ll listen to them, but I refuse from the secret, not only because my feelings and intuition are against this but also because, over the years, I’ve also understood that such an obsession with knowledge as I had is very dangerous,» and without a transition. « I, Hermione…»
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She’s a wimp; I don’t like her anymore!
Jerk!
From a jerk, I’m hearing this!
It seems I got distracted again... Now, where was I? Remember! I need to collect my thoughts and again analyse the data I have.
«Well, you’ve got to be kidding!» I outraged after a while. « Why does all this happen to me?» I ask a rhetorical question into the void.
To put so much energy into overcoming difficulties in order to think in silence. But as it turns out, there’s nothing to think about. In fact, there’s a lot to think about, but to think about what I want, I can’t because of a banal lack of sufficient amount of information. And the most unpleasant thing is that I just understood this.
«And what to do? What should I do?» in a frenzy, I have begun repeating the same question, slowly flying into rage because of the fact that my thoughts, like scared rabbits, run through my head. All this outrage is stopped by a memory that has come from the depths of memory.
«I felt very bad; the eyes didn’t want to open. Overcoming me, I again and again tried to open them because I felt that it was important and that I wanted to see something with my eyes. I don’t remember how it happened, but I managed to do this.
At first, nothing could be seen because the scales blanketed my eyes, but then, with an effort, blinking with increasing horror, I looked at the environment. What I’ve seen harshly helped me quickly come to my senses, and even something in my head has cleared.
A staggering picture of the boundless Cosmos opened up to my frozen gaze. With the vain hope that I had merely imagined this, I began to blink intensely. But my attempt, full of naivety, failed; the Cosmos surrounding me from all sides, to my great regret, didn’t go anywhere.
Cosmos charmed by its pristine beauty, and I stared at it in admiring fashion, completely forgetting about the pressing problems and the fact that it’ wasn’t normal to hang like this somewhere in the expanses of Cosmos.
I don’t know how long I would have hung like that, immersed in contemplation, but a terrible thing happened. It’s not known how long it would have lasted if, twitching like an epileptic, I hadn’t accidentally seen the body stretched out on a wheeled bed.
Here's some strangeness that I didn't pay attention to at the time. The body was at the same time somewhere far below, and at the same time I could get a good look at it, as if it lay at arm's length.
«Stop!» I mentally exclaimed because I caught something on the periphery of consciousness.
To my great surprise, the picture immediately stood still. Afraid of scaring away luck, I politely asked, I don’t know whom to scroll the memory a little to the beginning, and, miraculously, it happened right away. Only after this did I understand, and I had to make a "cuckoo" sign. This was my memory, and that’s why I could control it. Well done, fuck… Then there were a lot of words, mostly obscene.
Having calmed with difficulty, I began to search for what had attracted my attention, scrolling through the memory first in one direction and then carefully scanning it in the other. I did this until I found what hooked me on.
These were thoughts, but obviously not mine, because, firstly, I didn’t remember when I said them, secondly, I could barely hear them, and thirdly, they arose only when I saw the body on the wheeled bed and began to examine it attentively.
I froze. To say that I held my breath is impossible due to its absence. So I froze as industriously as I could, listening to the barely audible words and straining everything that I could in my position.
« Is this my body?» The next words were said a little bit louder and with a panic in the voice: «I, what, have died?». Hysterically, «How and when has this happened? No, no, no!». Then, with despair and fatality, «This shouldn’t’ have happened! I’m so young; I recently turned seventeen.»
After scrolling through the memory a couple more times for reliability, in order to make sure that I’d heard everything right, I asked myself a question. And whose thoughts were these?
Having looked once again at the stretched-out body lying on the wheeled chair, I came to the conclusion that these were the thoughts of that young man whose body was lying down there, who, as it turned out, had only turned seventeen. The body that I seemed to have occupied. Though it depends, I was here, in the Cosmos, and he was down there. Hmm…
It looked like this: while its master was aswoon, I was settled with him, and after his personal memories were torn from its memory, after this he died a little bit. And only his emotional reaction to some things reminded of itself. Now I understood where all these youthful reactions suddenly came from, as well as the hysteria that suddenly arose there among the stars.
Assuming that I took the place of a boy, it turns out he was definitely a goner. Well, in this way, it would be easier to accept what has happened to me. The thought that my appearance in it had killed him was unbearable.
«Now let’s keep moving on, and quicker, quicker, Merlin damn you, so that I - Mother Magic, will not to allow something like this to happen- have not started any non-constructive reflection…»
«Why do you think that the assessment of what is happening to you will be non-constructive?» once again, you’ll ask.
Because if I begin to think about the ethics of the fact that I occupied someone else’s s body and even took it from a young guy, thereby finally killing him, from such reflections, various bad questions will immediately pop into my head, for example, this one. If I hadn’t gotten into him, would he have had a chance to survive or not?
So reasoning in this light could lead to the fact that I would fall into uncontrollable despair and start eating my heart out, feeling guilty, which is wrong in my case.
«Why do you think that to feel guilty in your situation is not right?» you’ll be indignant.
My answer was this: because in the situation of appearing in someone’s body, nothing depends on me then, and nothing depends now. I didn’t make any efforts to appear in someone’s body, as well as I didn’t make, impel, or ask someone to place me in the young body.
And even if to consider the option in which I strived to restore justice, it was a real bummer. I couldn’t imagine what could be done, to whom to voice my displeasure, if I swam in some kind of grey frog and did no one can understand what and talked to no one understand with whom. Now I couldn’t even kill myself because I needed to first wake up in the body in order to have such a possibility.
Well, it was necessary to finish with the feeling of guilt, or who knows what I would agree to with the invisible interlocutor? I hope I hadn’t gone gaga, but maybe I already had. Ok, let’s not talk about the sad things. All right, I didn’t think about the sad and extraneous things and moved on to more pressing issues. At the moment, that for me was Harry's memories.
Having looked through my memory till the end, I was surprised to know about such a small detail as the fact that Harry Potter’s memories flew to me from somewhere outside, appearing through a portal. And what did it give me? Only that my earlier assumption that these memories were the memories of my previous embodiment wasn’t confirmed.
And not only that, this allows to safely conclude that since the memories left their master, he definitely died. Awesome, the boy died, leaving me his body; Harry Potter also died somewhere out there, leaving me his memories; and I was very much alive here in someone else's body with someone else's memories. Interesting!
I was saved from despair by a question that came to my mind. Why are the memories of a man who died somewhere out there shoved into me? It was clear about the body: the boy had died, the body was freed, and I was needed for something, which is why I had to live. So two notable incidences occurred, and someone placed me in the body under cover. Here everything was clear, whatever one may say, but why I was given the memories of a stranger, I had no idea.
Yes, here's the tricky bit with all these memories: no matter how much I thought and racked my brains, there was only one conclusion: I was sorely lacking information in order to make some assumptions.
The only thing that came into my tired mind about why someone else's memories were shoved into me was that there were some strong reasons for this, which, of course, were unknown to me.
For now, I would follow this because I don’t have enough information for a normal analysis. And it was necessary to decide what to do right now; otherwise, I would go crazy from this duality, or rather, threeality. The young man is one, I am two, and Harry is three. And what was I supposed to do in this case?
I was stunned as a brilliant thought entered my head. I was me. And no one else. Even if I didn't remember who I was.
The option to accept one of two personalities was unacceptable to me. And even though I didn’t remember anything about myself, this didn’t mean that I was ready to let the emotional state of the young slacker take over my feelings up.
His aggressive attitude towards the world, which he had shown me many times, was unacceptable for me. My judgment was that if, at the age of seventeen, he was dissatisfied with everything and everyone, then what would happen to him next if he continued to live? But maybe he perished because of such negative state of his soul. I needed to think carefully about this when I had some time in order not to become like him, yet I kind of got his body. What if this was contagious?
Didn’t distract! I hushed to myself because I had a feeling that soon I would black out or be blacked out. In the case of Harry’s personality, things were slightly more complicated. I had his memories, but I didn’t know what they had to do with me and if they had. That’s why I couldn’t accept his personality. When I imagined, I would accept his personality, and then his memories would be taken and I would be left…I was me, or I wasn’t me. Hm… I went too far. I confused myself.
But if, let’s say, to dismiss all these thoughts, as a person, Harry was a good man if there hadn't been one 'but,' … his son Alrus. Compared with him, Harry immediately lost out to him.
The insecure person subject to someone else’s influence, albeit not very much. Slightly melancholic and some kind of not quite whole, as if he were assembled from several parts of what, I didn’t know how to say, but watching him, I constantly had such a strong feeling. This was also the reason I wasn’t ready to accept his identity.
Though I felt greedy seeing the goodies I could have in the form of Harry's knowledge and experience, additionally, the following nasty thought crossed my mind: maybe if I accepted his personality, I would have his magic abilities?
And yet, however tempting it might seem, I chose myself as a new personality in this young body. In the meantime, without being able to change anything, I would continue to watch the memories of Harry Potter. Perhaps I could get the information I need.
As soon as I had determined my choice, I was immediately enveloped by a silver shining and after some time bathing in it, I understood that, in such a strange way, they told me that my choice was accepted.
As soon as the shining died out, I felt that, because of my nonmaterial state, I urgently needed to choose the name in order to cement my decision.
The only thing I could do now was start sorting out the names of Harry's acquaintances and neighbours and try them for myself.
When I ran out of name options, I got confused. None fit me! I didn’t know how it happened; I just knew that all the names didn’t fit me. My perplexity had gone when I remembered that there were two other names that I hadn’t checked: Harryson and James.
As strange as it sounded, the name Harryson suited me. Well, let it be, so I decided. Let it be Harryson. And I had thought about the fact that I needed to choose the short form of the name.
Here I am, Ree! I raised my transparent index finger. I liked this abbreviation, but Harry in the past strongly disliked it, which I was very happy about. For some reason, I wanted to somehow separate myself from Harry.
After this difficult process of name selection, I immediately felt tidiness, and I slowly began to fall into the darkness, allowing it to accept me in its tender embrace because all these thoughts, decision -makings and emotional and psychological tense accompanying them have worn me out very much.