Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 1990, 2nd of November
The year had been going well so far with our knowledge steadily increasing and our connections slowly solidifying. Our study of the mind arts was finally taking shape. Yesterday we had successfully infiltrated the restricted section of the library, varying tomes relating to obscure and dangerous subjects laying at our fingertips. Dodging notice by the librarian we were able to 'borrow' a book that spoke all about the arts of Occlumency and Legilimency.
Obviously our goal was to outstrip and replace those flawed arts but they were a good start on how to envision our mental scape and interacting with it using magic; to start with. Lun had naturally stayed awake all night in pursuit of our goal, his mind furiously working away at the details and concepts. His exploration must have provided some result as he had asked me to eat separately to the others today, in the hopes that he could reveal something to me.
~Don't worry sis, I've proven my theory about the mind-arts being the foundation of magical potency and power~
"Great, so, how do we achieve this new form of mind-arts?"
~Well, I believe there are multiple ways someone can approach the construction of new mind-arts. One way would be through mental conditioning akin to Occlumency training. The next would be through the forceful invasion of your magic into a foreign mind, Legilimency...~
He paused briefly as images flickered inside our mind, my understanding of what he was speaking about blossoming.
~My methods would take a more permanent form and would require more complex magical fields.~
"Such as...???" He grinned inside our souls.
~Rituals could be designed to sacrifice magical materials or biological concepts to enhance our brain and therefor bind a new concept into our mindscape. An example of a concept being bound into our very minds would be Control or Recollection... Either of these would aid in spellcasting massively and design an entirely new school of mind-arts for us to explore~
"That sounds somewhat dangerous though."
~It is, but it is actually one of the more stable ideas that I had come across last night~
"What are the others?" I spoke as if I were a little out of breath, my mind running free with the possibilities.
~Well, you know how I said that our mind and thus our soul was the source of our power?~
I nodded.
~What would happen if we were to use alchemy to reforge our mind's capabilities and enhance them? Imagine a brain that could handle the full potential of our combined souls. The magic we could wield...~
"That sounds really great, until you consider the fact that we would be intentionally taking an absurd risk and that changing our brain in any way could leave us both as vegetables!"
~That's why I said rituals were the safer option~
"...Okay... So, is there a more meditative way to change our intent with our use of mind-arts?"
~I suppose we could slowly form a structure related to storing memories and emotions, then tie that 'structure' into a deeper concept such as Wisdom, Intelligence or more simply Logos... That would take months of work though and would have less powerful effects than rituals or alchemy~
"We choose that method. It is far less dangerous, we can observe all of the moving parts without massive amounts of research and we can use rituals or alchemy to boost what we already have by an even greater extent later."
~Wait, your theorising that the state of our mind would effect the quality of the ritual or alchemical process...~
"Meaning that if we start with a better resource, a better structured and more versed mind, then we can use rituals to multiply the power of a trained mind over an untrained one."
~Ensuring that the rituals would be permanent and of such a quality that they could outstrip any ritual we could currently conduct to boost our current mind~
"Yep~!"
~I'm impressed... Okay, we'll start the slow way~
"So when are we scheduling ourselves in for the task of mind-scape building?"
~I'll do mine at night whilst you do yours throughout the day~
"Done."
~Pleasure doing business with you... Hehehe~
I rolled our eyes as the food for breakfast popped up before us in the abandoned classroom that we'd commandeered. The house elves were truly some of the most benevolent creatures we'd ever run into. Even the centaurs paled in comparison to the dedication of the house elves.
...
Later that night me and Lun stood inside our mental space, a massive glowing star pulsating beside us as we conversed.
"We need to wield magic and imbue our intent into it whilst layering it into the grey space around us sis. Think of it like painting, we need to paint out our ideas and concepts into our mind and dry our magic out until it is permanent, so to speak."
I nodded along to Lun's words as I watched our combined souls pulsing in a deep cerulean glow between us. Our work began quickly after, our magic slowly dripping out of the sun that was our soul, the 'paint' for our canvas collecting around our feet.
A sharp stab of connection implanted itself inside of me and Lunaris as well. Explosions of colours spread through my perception until I was left with the lingering need to do something with the colours. My consciousness was drawn through past memories of my father and mother, laughing with Lunaris over the plight of Dumbledore and the finally the flittering memories of our experience with magic.
Neither of us could speak, when I tried it came out as a struggled gasp. The oxygen that I could feel us breathing in was failing to transfer into our vocal cords. We were truly alone and separated, a gnawing void that made me uncomfortable and cold. Another pull on our soul ushered forth a feeling of need, an omnipresent desire for connection, a draw towards concepts... Whatever they may be.
The lack of connection I felt drew me into the frantic desire to fulfil this random urge. Whatever needed to be done to recover my connection to my brother would be... I thought on the concept of Permanence and Magic. A claw of resolution raked across our mind as our magic, which displayed itself as an array of vibrant colours, slowly began painting pictures upon the grey void around us. Frescos not unlike those present in the LeFay villa consumed the entirety of my half of the grey void. Depictions of Phoenixes, Basilisks, Biblical Angels, Biblical Demons, Nymphs, True Dragons, Unicorns and Elves splayed themselves across my half as the background behind them tumultuously stuttered between visions of heaven, hell and the fey.
Opposite me the choice of Lunaris spread, the word Logos and Pathos spreading through the air like ethereal strands of light. Immediately his half was alight with the ink of his most precious books, words being written indelibly upon our mind in golden splendour. Simultaneously that very scripture began to be encompassed by the chaotic rainbow of emotions that was pathos itself.
In a moment of rapturous ecstasy we both looked up at our work and smiled, our eyes meeting one another before going back up to the foundation of our new mind-arts. This was just the start of our work and yet we had already achieved such beauty... What if we spent the next year of our lives constantly grinding away at increasing the complexity of our concepts... Adding to the lexicon of information that these concepts already contain and then refining the syntax to condense our control to levels that could have well not been seen since the time of our ancestor, Merlin.
The silence was broken by our very mindscape, the dome that wove the outer structure and shield intertwining into unclear images that had yet to clarify. I got the distinct impression that we would need to pour more magic into the space to evolve it... Like Herbology to an extent, where you use your own magic to plant the seeds of a new flower and increase its potency, vitality and resistance. A sharp cracking had begun around the sun that were our combined souls, the outer shell falling away to reveal two indescribable plumes of light.
"Our soul..." Lunaris's voice echoed softly through our mind as we both watched our hugging souls spindle out and stretch for the first time in, well, ever.
"Our soul." I intoned the same words after a moment of observation, the very space between the dome and us filling with hundreds if not thousands of memories and emotions.
Rolling plains and hills exploded into existence as the dome stretched further and further outwards, our magic straining to sustain the expansion. Neither of us could be bothered to care however as we watched all of the emotions; represented by clouds of varying lights, be latched onto by the dome above and sucked into Lunaris's side. Memories and knowledge soon followed in the same path and created entire new passaged along the ink-free pages that made up the dome's structure.
Indignance spread through me for a time as my side was doing nothing for us... That was until I noted the 'paint' that represented our magic dripping from every inch of my side, the magical substance pooling into valleys and gullies, filling them to the point that entire lakes, rivers, streams, creeks and oceans were made.
Static built around us both before that too became a physical buzzing, the sound waves cascading off of us as magic itself seeped into our bodies. Something started shifting inside of us, something important. Panic threatened to consume us both but faded just as quickly for some strange reason. All of our limbs froze and turned as frigid as arctic ice whilst our blood boiled with all the heat of magma... Then as if that were merely an illusion our metaphysical representations within the space returned to normal.
"What was that?" Lunaris sounded deeply shaken as he looked around.
"I don't know, but I think it has something to do with the concepts I chose..." I licked my lips and looked at the ever-increasing landscape around us.
"Your concepts... Did you choose something weird again?" I huffed in response to his obnoxious question.
"No! I chose permanence and magic!"
Lunaris's eyes widened before he facepalmed, his entire body phasing in and out for a moment.
"That, can have so many connotations Sol! Permanence could literally mean immortality, sustained state of being or just simply hitting the pause button. It could be interpreted in thousands of different ways! Let alone with 'Magic' as a concept..."
I grimaced in embarrassment whilst he continued voicing his gripes.
"Magic can encompass all schools, all concepts of magic, all species of magical beings, artefacts, scrolls, knowledge, power... The list is almost as endless as magic itself... And you connected our mind to that concept alongside 'Permanence'!"
I twitched my nose in slight disdain for his constant whining. I mean, it had worked out, why was he being such a prat about it?
"No wonder your side is filled with immortal creatures in mythology... Magical species to be completely direct! Plus your side is dripping raw magic into our mind!!!" His eyes expanded as he finally noticed the various bodies of water that were suddenly sprouting inside our mindscape.
"HOLY SHIT!" I finally sighed out loud and interrupted the magic-drunk buffoon.
"Enough brother, we need to see the effects it has in the real world. From there we can slowly advance our exploration of these concepts." As my words finished the space pulsed and our forms began shimmering.
...
We awoke in the class room laying flat on our back upon the flagstones. Lunaris was completely silent as of this moment, the only hint of his presence being the incessant prattling of theories and concepts deep within our mental world. That was a change, I could tell where he was inside our mind at all times and more than that I could feel his emotions and thought process as if mine and his were the same.
Opening our eyes I was met with a tidal wave of magical energy pouring down into us, the multicoloured hue of magic swirling around our head like a vortex. The scene was so powerful that I could barely resist throwing up all over the ourselves.
"I think some things have changed Lun..."
~No shit! Your additions could have had any number of effects on our body and its powers... As it is I can feel the influx of magical power at our finger tips, stored within our body. Which, as I stated in my theory, is not natural for Wizards or Witches... We don't have cores to make our own magic... We simply borrow magic from our surroundings and manipulate other energy with it.~
"Perhaps we've turned into a container, much like an artefact?"
~That... Is actually, a good theory to work from... Give me the day...~
I rolled our eyes and started to stand up, only to notice that our magic had instantly answered our desire and we were already standing. Frowning I willed the door open with but a thought and stood gobsmacked as the wooden door swung open gently, as if pushed with a hand.
'Holy shit!'
~Yeah, that's what I said...~
...
The sparrow softly landed between a black-haired boy and brown-haired girl at the Slytherin tables, the bird's small beady eyes quickly scanning the entire table. The person it desired was not present and its presence was drawing too much attention.
When the doors to the main hall opened once more she was close to taking off before the visage of the girl she sought stepped through, her eyes glowing a powerful lilac-gold and the very skin across her body shimmering in a faint silver aura.
A happy dancing ensued as the bird awaited the meeting with her future liege lordess.
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