NOVEL WEB Chapter 7
Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.
Chapter 7– Needs Must.
I open my eyes blearily, unaware of my surroundings and ignorant of where I am or what I am doing? Finally, my eyes are open, but I still can't see correctly. My eyes are too blurry, so I try to move my hands towards my eyes so that I can rub them awake, but I can't. I try again, but my hands can't be moved from my sides. In fact, they seem to be restrained by something that is wrapped around them-
Panicking, I start to shake and wiggle my arms, trying to free them, but I find no reprieve, and the more time I spend trying, the more I realise my situation. I am restrained to a chair and tied to it with ropes obviously cast with an Incarcerous. I try my best to break free with frantic urgency, but I can't break free no matter what.
Finding n purchase with my restraints, I look up to try and find some other means of escape. But instead of taking in my surroundings, my sight is drawn to the insufferable man standing a distance away from me, facing away from me, seemingly in deep thought, ignoring me like he always does.
"You bastard, what do you think you are doing? Release me this instance, now!" I can't help but shout when I see him. my anger bursts out with a fury, and I can't control myself when I see this buffoon galivanting and prancing around with whimsy.
"Hm, oh, you. Just go back to sleep. I can't deal with you right now." He turns around and says when he notices that I am awake, this bastard is once again ignoring me and telling me to go to- wait, wha-
"Stupefy"
I lower my wand, having cast a Stupefy at the now unconscious form of Digby. D. Digworth, who I had tied to a chair which was coincidentally my only other one, having smashed my other chair when I freed myself.
We are currently in one of my spare rooms, and by that, I mean a room that is fully furnished with Gilderoy Lockhart paraphernalia and portraits. Literally, the walls are fully covered in paintings of me, like some weird collage shrine thing, and you can't even see the wall at all. I don't even know what colour it is.
I picked this room because it was the least with objects, and the fact that he hates me, and I thought it would be fitting for him to be surrounded by moving images of myself. I also didn't want Digby to break out like I did by using his surroundings, so I moved out the few things inside using the levitation spell Wingardium Leviosa.
However, I didn't have time to marvel at my use of magic, still shaken up by what had just happened to me earlier. The fact that this bastard had just waltzed into my house, that this fucking nobody had come through my front door and tied me to my own chair, it infuriates me, but more than that, it scares me.
This man wasn't part of the original seven stories. He was not even mentioned in any part of the seven Harry Potter stories, movies or whatever the hell else was made for this franchise. He was on the same level as one of the nameless wizards that shake Harry Potter's hands in The Leaky Cauldron or one of the countless wizards that roam around the Ministry floor, minor side characters that are so useless that they aren't even named, inconsequential.
And yet here is someone, one of the nameless wizards that have never been mentioned, that just assaulted and captured me inside my own home. Digby. D. Digworth is a pudgy little man short in stature and broad in width. If you saw him in the street, you would ignore him, and he is ultimately someone who would be beneath your notice, yet he has done this to me. So this begs the question if this snake in the grass could reduce me to this state, then what other wizards are out there that could do even worse to me?
People out there that are worse than Digby, like the Death Eaters, of which he was a part or even wizards from other countries that have yet to be affected by Dumbledore's lighthearted views. Not to mention Voldemort himself, who is hundreds of times more terrifying than Digby and a thousand times more powerful.
But then I remember, I have to put it all into perspective. I have to remember that Digby. D. Digworth was not just an ordinary wizard. He was not on the same level as those wizards mentioned in passing. I might see Digworth as a standard everyday wizard, but that is just because I have countless memories of where he worked under me, as my lackey, doing any work for me that I did not want to do. So to me, he was just a regular working wizard.
But he wasn't because that was just his disguise as he tried to acclimate to this world while awaiting the return of his Dark Lord. Instead, Digby was a Death Eater, and not just any Death Eater, but from what he told me while I was tied to the chair, Digby was the Dark Lord's primary torturer, and he tortured countless people during his duration of that occupation, and he was extremely good at it.
The only reason he did not use his vast expanse of skills when it came to him torturing me was that he had a specific plan to take everything I owned after my death. Meaning that there could be no signs of foul play, which was fortunate for me as I didn't have to experience that extreme torture, and I was able to free myself from his clutches. However, that was his mistake because now he is the one in the chair, and I will not be so forgiving, especially after what he put me through and what he could have put me through.
I look towards him apathetically, not feeling anything for him, and that is only because I am implementing my Occlumency to repress my immense rage and anger towards him. After all, if I didn't, I would have already begun wailing on him, and I would have most likely killed him, but I have better plans for him.
Then, turning around, I leave the room and lock it behind me. No need to use magic on it because Digby is tied to a chair in the middle of an empty room with only my face to accompany him. Even if he wakes up, there won't be much he can do. He can just preoccupy himself with my image. I don't care, as I have better things to do before dealing with him.
Standing outside the room, I take a deep breath to calm myself and reorder my thoughts and realign my goals, and then I move towards my living room, taking a seat on my white sofa and focusing deep within and entering my mind, determined to finish what I was doing before the fat tub of lard intruded upon my home. I am going to sort out my mind and properly order everything within and hide that which needs to be hidden and bolden that which should be pushed out for people to see.
And this time, I am not going to half-ass it and make my mindscape composed of the work of others. How can I make the literal form of my mind conform to the creation of another person? It is purely idiotic, and I don't know what I was thinking. To make the manifestation of my mind be the map of some dumb game I played in my last world, I could not possibly trust that. I can only trust what I myself have made, and so I don't care if it takes me years. I will be making every little part of my mindscape down to the smallest atom with the greatest of care.
Now in my mindscape, currently a black void surrounded by bright orbs of light, each signifying one of my memories, I start to concentrate on my first step to creating the ultimate mindscape. Concentrating immensely, I begin to picture exactly what I would like to make and, focusing solely on that, and that alone, I begin to form my creation.
I look down at my newly formed creation, a brick, just a standard brick, but when I developed it, I was thinking about the appearance of a brick, but I imagined it having an unbreakable property, and I can tell that it had some effect when I look at the brick. So again, I concentrate on making a brick, but this time I do it a different way, and once that is formed, I do it again with another method and so o and so forth until I have run out of all ideas on how to create anymore.
Expecting them all closely, I see no faults with it, but I put it to the side for a moment and concentrate on actually making the base of my mindscape. The brick was just a test to see how I could begin to form things and which method was the best. I come to that conclusion by making quite a few copies of those breaks and then smashing them together at intense speed and seeing which one survives, kind of like a tournament, and in the end, my first method comes out on top, forming something while thinking what you want it to be like.
Using that method, I turned my sights to something bigger than just small bricks, and I concentrated on something so much bigger and so much more detailed. It takes me a while, but I am proud of the results, A green meadow full of hills and valleys, with flowers everywhere and even a big lake as well as a bright blue sky with a few fluffy clouds up there though I haven't got around to forming the sun yet.
I jump down into the lake and sink right down to the bottom, but I have no problems breathing, and I am not even wet, and that is because this is my mindscape, and it abides by my rules. Other people would have such problems but not me. So now, at the bottom of the lake, I chose a section of the rocky terrain of the seabed and began to burrow into it, forming a cave inside and burrowing deep into the earth. When I am far enough, I create a doorway, and through that doorway, I start to make a Library.
I make a grand library and fill it with books of fiction from my past life. Then, I just take all my memories to do with watching, binging and reading fiction and entertainment and turn them into books which I place on all of the shelves. There are actually too many that I even have to expand the library further just to fit them. Still, I make sure to not put any Harry Potter related ones in, and I make sure to turn all the technology-related words in the books into the word magic, just in case.
With that done, I create a secret bookshelf at the back, leading to another room where I store my Gilderoy Lockhart memories. The ones that are just general and not really worth anything, I keep them in the form of glass balls like the ones in the department of mysteries, and I store them on various shelves in the room, creating multiple rows. With that done, I make another secret room accessed by pulling one of the shelves on the wall, which removes the back wall.
In that next room, I store Gilderoy's more secret memories and things he generally doesn't want people to know, embarrassing stuff really and nothing of any actual consequence. Still, they are things Gilderoy would not want to get out, as they would ruin his image in the public's view. Of course, I do not include his mastery of obliviation or his obliviating and stealing his stories. After all, this library is supposed to be a decoy for anyone who manages to make it this far inside my mindscape.
But if someone manages to make it this far, someone like Dumbledore, who is probably aware or suspects that Gilderoy Lockhart stole the memories of other wizards for his books, then it would obviously be suspicious that those memories are not included in this. And so, I take it a step further and create another secret room, but this time I do it underneath this one, and you have to physically push a giant marble statue of myself that I put in the middle of the room. But, again, it just felt like this would sell the story more.
This time though, I make sure that the room is pitch black. When I place the memories on the shelves throughout the room, I intersperse them with various memories from the previous rooms, making sure the order is as random as possible. This room is purely for the people that already know about these memories and are looking for them, so basically, Dumbledore, as I know from the books that he is friends with one of the wizards Gilderoy stole a story from, so if he knows and comes looking he will find this and not look any deeper.
I don't want any of this stuff to be found out, but if someone as powerful as Dumbledore comes to find them, then I don't know if I would be able to stave him off, and I don't want someone with that kind of power running around with the knowledge from my past life and the seven books of Harry Potter.
This is my last decoy to stop people from finding my previous life's memories, and if the memories in this room are located, then it is not the end of the world. I have magic now, which means I can do anything, so I can figure out how to create a new identity and change my appearance. It is not as if they have any sort of ID in the magical world or a magical signature or something. I could easily create a new life for myself if needed, but I will try sticking it out with this one for now. After all, I am in a position of power due to my fame, and it would be a shame to give it all up.
With that done, I spent some more time adding the finishing touches to this underground library and neatening it up, making sure that it was detailed enough because when I did my brick test, I discovered that the more complicated the brick was, the more solid it was. So, therefore, I will spend as much time as possible detailing my mindscape to the utmost degree, every day working on it to perfect it and never stopping. Even when I think it is finished, I will continue to add to it.
This whole process did not happen in an instant. It actually took full days. I spent a lot of time just testing the bricks and finding the best one before starting on my mindscape. It is very tiresome work that really taxes the mind. I didn't even check on my captive.
I was so tired from my work, and honestly, I didn't really care about him. I could dimly hear his shouts from where I was working on my mindscape, but I ignored him. I could think about feeding him and his hygiene later. Right now, I have to focus on myself and forging my mind.
The first thing I have to do now is to hide the library and make it even harder to find, which means my first order of business is working on the caves under the lake as well as the lake itself. Starting with the caves, I want to make an absolute maze that makes it nearly impossible to get through to the library. To do that, I just give myself the power of flight and start to zoom all over the underground, burrowing through the rocks and making dozens of different paths and entrances.
It didn't take as long as I would've thought to finish as I made an extensive maze of caves and paths with only one passageway leading to the library, I'm sure there is more that I can do to protect it even more, but this will be sufficient for now, I have to work on other stuff as well.
So now, to work on the outside and improve the appearance, and so I start to alter the terrain, spreading sand along the seafloor and adding corals, reeds, seagrass and a variety of other things to really make it feel like a seabed, and I use these things to cover up the entrances to the maze.
Down with the lake, for now, having at the very least disguised the entrances to the maze somewhat, I turn my gaze towards the sky. I can add more detail later. But, looking up at the clear blue sky and the fluffy white clouds, I can clearly see that there is something undeniably missing: the sun, which is what I am going to create next.
I start by imagining a small glass sphere high up in the sky, which holds a space of around 50 square metres. I make sure to concentrate to the very best of my ability, focusing my all on this creation and imagining the object as the strongest thing to ever exist and thinking of the super dragon balls from Dragon Ball while creating it. My brain begins to ache. Still, I carry on non the less, pushing through to make the most critical thing in my mindscape.
With a mental pop, I let myself go and begin to relax, letting all the tension leave me as I finish making my creation, and when I look up at the sky, I can see an orange crystal ball floating there. Moving closer, I inspect it on the outside and make my best brick and fling it at the ball, only for it to bounce off. Then, concentrating my mind, I create dozens upon dozens of bricks and begin to rapid-fire them at the ball like a machine gun, only for them all to bounce off.
Satisfied, I get rid of the bricks and then teleport inside the crystal ball. Inspecting it from the inside, I can tell it is just as good as on the outside and proceed to the next step of my creation. Concentrating, I form a block of steel inside the crystal ball, and then I concentrate on making an identical steel block right next to it. Getting close to one of them, I put my finger inside it and dug into it, making a groove. Looking towards the other steel block, I can see the same groove in it as well.
Grabbing that steel block, I teleport down to the ground with it, leave it there and then go back up inside the crystal and make another groove on the steel block. Teleporting back down, I see the exact same groove in this steel block, meaning distance is not an issue.
Then I concentrate and begin to form the sun, thinking of the hottest thing in existence as well as Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto. The Captain Commander of the Gotei 13 in Bleach, whose power of flame was so great he could devastate all life, again I feel the same pain, but I just push through it.
Again the strain suddenly releases, and I begin to feel a deep heat on my skin. It is warm and hot but not to the point of being uncomfortable. Looking up, I can see a small sun in the sky, lording above my mindscape. It is a beautiful vibrant yellow that illuminates all of my lands. Quickly looking to the side at the steel block, I can see that it is just the same as it was before, completely unaffected.
Happy with the results, I teleport up into the orange crystal ball at the centre of the sun I just created. Once inside, when I look out, I can see nothing but the scorching flames surrounding the crystal ball. Seeing the unharmed steel block, I vanish it from existence as it had served its purpose. While I did create the crystal ball with the intention for the things outside not to affect the inside, I couldn't trust that it would work, which is why I tested it with the steel blocks.
Now with my secret space inside the sun itself, I release all of my most precious memories, the memories from my past life, to float around the inside of the orange crystal ball as orbs of white light. There is no reason to disguise them as glass balls like the other ones. after all, nobody is going to think to search the inside of the sun.
Satisfied with my work for the day I leave my mindscape, I have taken care of all the urgent problems and fulfilled all the immediate needs. I can take time later to further refine my mindscape. After all, I have done all I can, and all that's needed now is time to further improve it.
Well then, I suppose it is time I check up on Digby. D. Digworth. after all, it has been over two days since I left him in that room. Hmm, the last time I thought about him, I felt unquenchable rage bathed in the fury of a thousand waves, but now I just feel very, very justifiably angry at him and vengeful. I guess working on your mindscape and creating things can be very therapeutic. Who knew.
Standing up, I make my way over to the room where he is held captive, and I open the door.
"AGGGGHH, YOU BASTARD!! I WILL KILL YO-" I slam the door shut when I catch sight of Digby raving around like a lunatic, foaming at the mouth like he has rabies. With the short glance I got at him before I relieved my eyes from the horrific sight, I saw slobber covering the upper half of his body and then a whole host of other stains covering the different parts of his body. Yellow stains, brown stains, orange stains and even green stains, I could not deal with any of that stuff right now, and I am not entering the room with him like that.
Making a U-turn, I head towards my library to look through the Hogwarts books. I know a variety of cleaning charms and spells, but those were primarily appearance-based. Still, even if those charms worked on him, I would never be able to be in that room without thinking of that sight.
So I am going to the library to learn the vanishing spell, Evanesco. It is a transfiguration spell which transfigures the target into nothingness. That is what I need. So instead of just cleaning that stuff, it needs to be destroyed.
Heading into my library, I begin to pilfer through all the textbooks in search of this essential spell, and it takes me quite a while to skim through all of the transfiguration books, going up incrementally by year in order, but eventually, I get to the fifth year textbooks and discover the spell. I know that this is a transfiguration spell, and Gilderoy was never any good at transfigurations, so I have hardly any knowledge about it, but I am willing to learn it. I will not enter that room again without it.
And once I have learned it and cleaned Digby up, and then I can get to the real reason I kept him around. To start learning more about magic, I will need a guinea pig, and Digby just so happened to turn up, and well, needs must.