— Clara POV —
Exiting the space I found myself in, I appeared in a small sitting room, which I had never seen before. In it sat Andy, Henry, Mad Eye and a stern looking lady. „Oh, tea. Nice, I am so thirsty right now!", I said, before I snatched an unused cup and poured me one, before cursing, as I had burned my mouth due to haste. So I drew out my wand, cast a underpowered freezing charm, before I continued to drink the tea. Plum and cinnamon if I had to guess. This also sent three out of four people in this room into a vigilante state. Mad Eye was expected, the same for Andy, as he probably was the only one who knew about what nearly had happened and in contrast to Henry didn't have that much trust in me to just shrug it of like I did. The last one was the unknown lady, which surprised me a bit.
„So, are you an auror madam?", I asked here, before I poured another cup of tea for myself. I could see it in her eyes, that I was right on the money and that it startled her, though I must give it to her, the rest of her poker face was perfect. Not a single twitch, scrunch or any other anomaly. Shortly later she answered: „Yes, actually the head of the auror department, Amelia Bones, pleasure to make your acquaintance", to which I lifted an eyebrow and asked: „So why would you be here? Incinerating a basilisk corpse, which was loot of conquest from the Hogwarts professors wouldn't warrant your presence here, so tell me, what are your allegations this time?"
„So you have no recollection of what has happened?", she repelled my question with another one. After a short check of my memories I answered her: „No missing memories here. Incinerated the basilisk with strange blue fire, probably bloodline related. After two months of forced meditation I awoke abruptly, had a small magical tantrum, as I restrained myself from transforming into my first animagus form, nearly became an obscurial duo to this acting as a catalyst for past trauma, though I could stop that, which broke a lot of my bones, which still need healing btw. Slept three days and awoke in a curious space, which I exited and here we are." Apparently you could see and hear my confusion, as three people in the room frowned, except Henry, who was holding back laughter. As a grandmaster of the mind arts his poker face is lousy, gonna annoy him with that in the future.
Madam Bones just sighed and said: „This just got way more annoying than I thought it would." Mad Eye also shook his head disappointed: „This is gonna be a lot of paperwork, cannot hold it out of the press like last time either", which got a scandalous look from Madam Bones. He bared back: „Still not over that?", before Madam Bones asked me: „So, just to clarify things. You didn't intend to massacre half of St. Mungos, didn't want to destroy the right wing and are not a terrorist?" „No, no and no. For fucks sake who do you think I am? I am broken and have problems but I am not that broken. Apart from that, I could do all three of those without being discovered, so why do it in such a crude way, even if I still don't know what happened? If I had really planned whatever you think I did, I would not get caught in a manner like this. Hell, I could probably kill the minister of magic without getting caught. His mind's defenses are dogshit. Same goes for most personell in St. Mungos and the ministry. Even the masters in the DOM are not even remotely as strong as they think they are. Lowering standards…", which was followed by a small vent about the current low standards for a mastery of the mind arts, which was promptly joined by Henry, before Mad Eye stopped our discussion in its track with a very loud cough. „And how do you know that?", Madam Bones asked, to which I just shrugged and said: „Henry takes me out sometimes to correctly identify the various levels and things of others mind arts. It is not illegal, neither old or new laws, I checked before I agreed the first time."
„And where do you think using mind arts on other people is legal is written? Because I can assure you it is not!", questioned a furious Madam Bones, her right hand gravitating towards her wand. At this point Henry started hysterically laughing, while I explained: „We do not use mind arts on other people. It is more like seeing someone on another level. You currently look at me and see my physical body. From this you can infer age, gender, preferences and my complete visual. We do the same, just with your mental space. It is more about sensing, a pure passive ability, just like reading a persons face, which is actually a child category of this training. Talk about lacking standards…" „Please don't go there again kid", Mad Eye complained, after which I stopped talking.
„So, what do you see in me?" Madam Bones asked me. „Well, not to go that way again, but general lack of basic knowledge, together with lousy, sloppy and just overall unstable and unfinished mental defence at your age, together with your purely defensive use of the arts, overall grade I would say, barely novice, if at all. I could demonstrate if you would like?" „So, why would I trust your observation?", she asked again, slowly I could see the greed after new knowledge about the subject. „Would you like a demonstration? I will need your consent obviously, as it would be illegal otherwise", I responded. After a short moment, where I could literally see the gears turning in her head, she said: „Sure, I agree, but I will probably regret this, won't I?" I answered: „Definitely, now let us talk about fish."
What followed was a confused look from Madam Bones, before Henry began to talk about different fish species with me, while we both started smiling like maniacs, while Andy just reclined and enjoyed the show. After five minutes of this, I asked Madam Bones, who was silently trying to strengthen her mind's shields: „So, what did we talk about?" „Birds obviously?", she answered confused, after which Mad Eye started laughing maniacally and could barely bark: „Wrong, we talked about plants!" At that point I realized, that I wasn't the only one having fun. Henry had done a few tricks too, just on another person. We both started laughing very hard at that, together with a chuckling Andy, before I said: „You both are wrong", which got a confused look from Mad Eye: „We talked about fish!" At that point I removed my legilimency on Madam Bones face, after which she instantly scrunched up her face, while Mad Eye stopped laughing, before sighing: „Damn, why would you embarrass me like that Henry?!"
„Now, while this was fun and I would certainly like to enlighten you about what just happened, I still have medical matters to attend to. If someone would be so kind to get me to a healer I would be thankful", I said, before losing consciousness. Again.
This time it was only an hour, before I regained consciousness, all bones already healed, as luckily none needed to be vanished or I would be in for a rough night. This also marked the first time after two months, at which I was barely pain free. My nerves felt more like a severe muscle ache than pain at this moment and my bones were completely healed while I was out. The healer basically told me to take it slow and to not pull such a stunt again, before leaving, more like fleeing, out of the hospital room, after which I went and took a very long hot shower, just to change back into a fresh but still lackluster hospital gown, as I didn't have anything else, because my previous ritual outfit was destroyed by my out of control magic, as I obviously didn't wear it at that time, but it hang in a wardrobe in my room, which obliterated with the rest of it.
Coming out of the bathroom, I was confronted with a peculiar problem. A man stood in my room and all my senses told me, that it was Dumbledore, but my eyes showed me otherwise. I needed a few seconds, before it made sense: „Congratulations", I said and before Dumbledore could answer I added: „We shouldn't talk about that in public though, so I need to postpone your questions. Additionally, my knowledge is probably less than yours in that regard. So what brings you here? I hope this is not about the atomized basilisk corpse?" I questioned him. Dumbledore who looked approximately 60 years younger answered: „While I certainly regret losing such a fine specimen, I also think I understand, why you did it. More importantly, it was clearly a burst of accidental magic or you wouldn't have nearly killed yourself with that spell. I came to ask about that incident though."
„Well", I said: „I certainly can talk about that, but let me get something of my chest. You are a very bad headmaster. Any worse and you would probably be dead. Now for me it is even worse. You may know already, that my senses are off the charts. But take everything you though about my senses and multiply it by 1000x and you would still be not even close. I can literally feel, see, hear and smell magic, my senses work on hundreds of different levels, completely different from you. They are even more advanced than yours, by a lot. To put it in terms, the reason I was in a two months coma was the overloading of my nerve system due to too much information traveling along them at halloween. Per second your brain handles lets say one data unit of informations from various sources. My brain handles in a normal environment at least a hundred data units to your one, and in that night probably a thousand data units to your one. To understand the problem we need to go back to my first day at school. Hogwarts literally begged for help, hoping that someone could hear her. Afterwards she went silent, until Halloween. I don't know how you could not realize it, but at that day Hogwarts radiated so much emotion, drowning every single inch of castle grounds with them, wailing, screaming, raging and so much more emotions. Every single soul in the castle should have felt something at the very least. I felt everything. So shortly after my ritual finished, I answered Hogwarts, trying to find out what was going on, which was a mistake to be honest, as she linked me to an observation ward spanning the whole castle, which fried my nerves in the end. It also guided me to the chamber. Even what I screamed at that moment was whispered by Hogwarts and not my own words. I was anything but rational at that moment, hell I can be thankful I remember most of it, so yeah. That was about it." After a short while I continued: „The wards of Hogwarts are also in disrepair, not even as strong as those of St. Mungos, which were in action just a day ago. I also don't need to tell you about the bad curriculum, your focus on a prophecy and politics, together with your regret of the past. You did a lot of wrong and downright bad things. The only reason you are alive today is, that you thought you did the right thing for the right reasons and that some of those have helped in some regard."
After my monologue and short rant at the end of it, we just stayed silent for a while. Dumbledore looked torn, probably between so many different things of the past. After this long pause: „You are right, with everything you said and I will try to fix it and atone for my sins. It will surprise you, but I already retired of my political posts and have declared Hogwarts a neutral ground, which was overdue since long ago. But how does anyone know about that damn prophecy? I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping it secret." At that point I laughed a bit, before replying: „You are so damn naive for your age. There can be multiple prophecies about the same topic, even complete opposite ones. And there are many more true seers than Sybill Trelawney out there. While it is generally believed that she is one of the best seers, the sheer amount of seers still guarantees that there is nothing like privacy in regard to prophecies. Well, according to Andy at least. He raved a bit about her poor teaching habits before sending me to Hogwarts, so maybe find a second teacher for divination, I suggest a centaur. Well anyway, while a lot of people know about it, it is still a large minority, I only know, as it was relevant to something from my bloodline, which I won't explain further now."
„You are probably right", Dumbledore sighed: „So, I still have another question: Would you like to be a teacher for mind arts at Hogwarts? I must admit that I sadly do not know many masters of the mind arts and those I know are either unqualified for teaching or just don't want to." Now that took be my surprise, so I thought a bit about it, before answering: „While I am honored to be considered for it, I will need to decline, as I have no plan to be a teacher at the moment. I also think that most students would be unwilling to be taught by someone younger than them. I could recommend a teacher though, but it should stay between us, as the students will hate me, if it ever comes out, which I don't want to deal with." „I am saddened to hear that, but I would like to hear your recommendation", Dumbledore answered after a brief pause. „Henry Flacks, grandmaster of the mind arts and also my teacher. He is also a damn good mind healer and passionate teacher, though his methods are kind of unorthodox and annoying most of the time. I would also have a few other recommendations for other positions if you ever need them." After another short pause I added: „If you would be so nice as to lower your minds defenses, I need to tell you something delicate."
„Ok, go ahead", he said, before I spoke in his mind: „I would recommend that you get a foolproof slave contract and offer it to Grindelwald. He will soon also transcend that first hurdle and trust me, you do not want to see your old friend land in someone elses hand, as there are a lot of ruthless figures who still bear a grudge against him, who could use that opportunity to execute him, as while you barely came out of it alive, he has only this one chance. But let me look over the contract, as while I still need to learn a lot, I can save you the trouble of being duped."
After I thought a bit about it, I also decided to add out lout: „About the wards of Hogwarts, don't let anyone touch it for now, Hogwarts will have a very averse reaction to that and I will take that task on, as I am one of the few who can communicate with Hogwarts at the current time. While I would love to chat more, I need to check a few things and need to meditate for it and I have already given you a lot to think about." Dumbledore answered: „Ok, just one more information for you before our final goodbye. Hogwarts gave you full access to the wards, even a level over the headmaster. Goodbye and get well soon. I hope to see you in school soon." Afterwards he promptly left the room.
I also started meditating soon after, as I had already felt that something was off. The first discovery was, that my volume of magic lost at least half. Not in overall capacity, but it wouldn't fill over the halfway mark, leaving the other half unused. Nothing else changed, expect that my style of controlling magic was now some hybrid between forcing and guiding it. This felt extremely weird and if I need a comparison with something, it would be like an object being hard and soft and the same time. Two complete opposite concepts working in tandem, balancing each other. I also felt that it would be easier to change small things and even add other styles of control into it, though easy is just relative to normal, which meant that it was still very hard to do. I will need to experiment with that in the future and I will hopefully not destroy another building in the process. The problem with this was, that my current control sunk. By a lot. I would need exponential more experience and practice to get better than before. I think it will go something like the more major directions I have, the harder it gets and the longer I will need to get better at it. Could also be wrong, but it would be relatively normal for progression in something. Gonna need to keep an eye on that too.
I also had found a new animagus from, but not stationary as I originally thought. I also don't know where it comes from. It was a grasshopper, the opposite being the form of movement, size and worldview. The barrier though was a bit smaller than before, so I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, but I am sure it won't hurt. Now that I think about it, I think I understand how to overcome these barriers better. It is not just about understanding the animal, it is about synchronizing your emotions, mindset and so on. An example would be running with four legs instead of two or swimming more like a mermaid, without arms and individual legs. Oh this is genius. I will probably become the laughing stock at school though. Probably am already due to my ritual outfit but still, human transfiguration is sadly out of question for now, as I would either kill or cripple myself with that, so time to go old-school with this, which meant physical constraints for some part and a lot of practice. Ever seen a person read a book titled: how to sleep? It gets way funnier if the book is titled how to swim like a fish.
This also sadly meant, that I would need to get muscles, as a bear does have those in abundance and I need to find out if such minute differences also make a difference. I could also go down the whole research route, but I sadly don't have enough resources, especially human ones. Maybe in the future though, especially with Hogwarts reform coming up, there will pop up many more masters of a lot of different fields. In the long term, maybe even more grandmasters. Wizards will have another period of rapid growth, though it will take a few decades to get started with. Maybe we will even see masteries done at Hogwarts again, that were the good times, well at least Andy did say that. This opposite approach will maybe also change pureblood culture to the better, as the previous approach was not that effective sadly.