Harry stared at the homunculus's soul. As the homunculus came to understand the notion of "self", that colourless "field" grew more and more active. Even to the naked eye it now seemed full of vigor, like the heat-haze rising above a bonfire at high noon.
He closed his eyes and tried using his wand to sense it.
The homunculus's soul had imitated Harry's appearance at first, but it soon realised that it was not Harry Potter. That image then faded away like dust washed off by rain. It returned to its former misty shape, and inside the mist there were still many tiny short lines like mayflies, and they were multiplying quickly.
"What do you see?"
"A lot of short strings."
"Don't let the thought strings distract you. Go deeper into the soul."
Only then did Harry learn that these short lines drifting in the soul were called "thought strings". He wasn't sure if he'd heard the term somewhere before or if Mr. de Lin had just made it up.
"What are thought strings?"
"They're the reflection of brain activity within the soul, and also the carriers of magic. Thought strings are the projection of memory and thought—each one represents a single act of thinking, a burst of neural impulse. They're like the flesh and blood of the soul. The young have thought strings that are full and vigorous; the old have thought strings that are dried and withered. The wise have thought strings that are vast and sensitive; fools have thought strings that are sparse and sluggish."
Harry found this explanation fascinating. He also wanted to know what his own thought strings looked like. They should at least be young—he just didn't know if they counted as wise or foolish.
But he hadn't forgotten why he was here. He tried to sink deeper into the soul. The sensation was very strange; he didn't feel as if he were moving forward or backward, only as if he were "diving down". In his magical sight, the density of thought strings kept increasing. They were clustering around something, as though there were some sort of "core" in the depths.
Yet Harry couldn't see anything.
"Mr. de Lin…"
"Wait a bit. All right—pay attention to the state of those thought strings. The topology of the consciousness body has already formed."
Harry carefully observed the thought strings and noticed that when they crossed a certain boundary, they immediately turned dull and lifeless. That boundary was a sphere inside the soul. Every thought string that entered this boundary lost its vitality, merely gliding along by inertia. Only after leaving the sphere did it grow lively again.
"It feels like there's an invisible spherical space there."
"That's the consciousness body. You can go a bit deeper."
With a mixture of caution and dread, Harry crossed the boundary of the consciousness body. There, he felt a heavy weight descend on him. His field of vision shrank and blurred, and every step forward became a struggle.
"Sir, I feel awful."
"That's the effect of thought-pressure. Don't worry. Keep diving."
"Understood."
"Now, do you see it? The 'self' at the very core of the consciousness body."
"Yes. A pitch-black star. It's pulling the thought strings in." Harry felt an instinctive fear of this soul-celestial body, so like a black hole. "It's terrifying."
"That's the monster called 'self'. It's a kind of pure emptiness. All right, stop staring at it. It might decide to come after you."
Harry couldn't tear his gaze away from the soul-black-hole. The soul structure called "self" was like the most dazzling gem in the universe; anyone who saw it would be bewitched.
"Wake up." Mr. de Lin's voice seemed to echo from some distant horizon.
Harry shuddered and finally opened his eyes.
"I felt like I was about to drown," he said. "I'm sorry, Mr. de Lin, I didn't mean to."
Skyl waited until Harry had calmed down a little, then began to explain his soul theory.
"You've just seen two layers of the soul's structure. The memory body is the most primal, fundamental structure of the soul. Once a soul loses its memory body, it effectively becomes a different person. Voldemort's method of making Horcruxes is to tear off pieces of the memory body and store them in other things. That does indeed grant immortality, but it also inflicts damage on the soul that can never truly be mended.
"Human children start forming lasting memories around the age of four or five. By then the consciousness body has already formed. But 'self-awareness' appears even later—between six and eight it gradually becomes clear."
Harry remembered that Skyl had once talked about a theory of magical development. "Self-awareness affects how magic develops, doesn't it?"
"Exactly. A wizard's thought strings are the carriers of magic. You've seen for yourself what kind of void-monster 'self-awareness' is. Once it appears within the consciousness body, the thought strings get bound to the surface of the self-core. With fewer carriers, magic starts to leak away. The birth of a Squib is often a tragedy of early ripening."
Harry nodded. "So what if there are lots of thought strings?"
"The more thought strings there are, the stronger the 'self-awareness' becomes. It's a tug-of-war. That's why the earlier your first magical outburst happens, the better your advantage."
"And the thought strings that are drawn into 'self-awareness'—do they just vanish?"
"No, they don't. 'Self-awareness' doesn't exist all the time. For example, when you're dreaming, self-awareness isn't there. In those moments, the thought strings that had been pulled in are released back into the consciousness body, and even the memory body."
"Why does self-awareness disappear? Doesn't that basically mean you're dead?"
"Self-awareness is not the same thing as the consciousness body, and even less the same thing as life. Descartes once said, 'I think, therefore I am.' Many people take it to mean that because I can think, therefore I exist. In fact, it's because my thinking gives rise to this 'I' that exists. You have to put the cause and effect in the right order to understand the sentence."
Harry looked thoughtful. What he really thought was: If Hermione were here, she'd probably get this.
Skyl felt a little helpless. Explaining theory to children had never been a pleasant job. Back when he'd been a teacher, his students had given him more than a few metaphorical brain hemorrhages.
"All you really need to remember is this: the source of the soul is the memory body, and the function of the soul is the consciousness body."
"And what's the last layer?"
"The final structure is called the 'remembrance body'. It may even appear earlier than the memory body, because it represents your 'name'—it represents you, and other people's remembrance of that name. The remembrance body is the strangest, most wondrous and deepest part of the soul's structure. Time will destroy the memory body and the consciousness body, but the remembrance body can continue to exist through people's memories."
Harry understood that much, and in that instant many questions were answered—only for many more to sprout in their place. He now vaguely understood why everyone called Voldemort "You-Know-Who". So names really did have power.
Skyl smiled. "The remembrance body can make someone a god, though the conditions are very harsh. Magical curses are usually laid upon the remembrance body. Moreover, powerful wizards can use the remembrance body to resurrect the dead. Unfortunately, without the original memory body, the split-off consciousness body is completely different, so the person revived is not truly the same as the one who existed in history."
Those words about resurrecting the dead stirred an immense longing in Harry's heart, only to be smothered by despair. He wanted to dig deeper and ask more, but in the end he said nothing.
Skyl looked down at the scrawny homunculus in his hand. "Let's give this little thing a name. That way you can observe the structure of the remembrance body, and we'll have made full use of our teaching aid."
Harry stared at the homunculus's pale, smooth skin and said, "Egg."
As he spoke the name, a sort of "shell", or "armour", or "outer skin" quickly formed on the surface of the homunculus's soul. To the naked eye, the soul now had a faint outline and colour. If it grew any clearer, it would look very much like a ghost.
With that, all three layers of the soul's structure had been revealed. The lesson was over, and this disposable teaching aid could be discarded.
Skyl pulled the homunculus's soul free and casually stuffed it into a soul gem. The body, robbed of its soul, quickly collapsed into a clump of wet ash.
Watching this, Harry shivered without meaning to, but oddly enough he didn't feel afraid. Nor could he say he felt excited. What rose in his heart was a strange sort of yearning, weighed down by a heavy numbness.
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