Harry began to suspect he'd been tricked.
It wasn't a sudden thought—it was something that had formed after several days of "Occlumency practice," during which every memory he had—including his dreams—had been thoroughly picked clean by Vaughan… and yet Harry had made absolutely no progress.
Ron, naturally, agreed with great enthusiasm.
"Listen, Harry. As someone with eleven years of experience getting bullied, I can tell you—Vaughan is definitely using you as target practice. Him helping people out of kindness? Ha! That's hilarious!"
He laughed twice—
—and one of his front teeth actually popped out.
Vaughan happened to pass by at that exact moment, looking perfectly innocent as he quietly pocketed his wand.
Ron had no choice but to sprint to the Hospital Wing and swallow a large goblet of Skele-Gro-flavoured misery so his tooth would grow back.
Hermione, however, had a different view.
She looked at Harry seriously and asked, "How do you know that thought is really your thought?"
It sounded like nonsense.
And yet… it was infuriatingly logical.
Harry clutched his head and spiraled straight back into equal parts terror of Dark Magic and philosophical despair.
After brooding over it all day, he still showed up that night in the Room of Requirement, face set like someone walking to the gallows, and offered himself up to Vaughan's Legilimency again.
Compared to Harry's near-nonexistent progress with Occlumency, Vaughan's Legilimency looked, to Harry, like it was improving at an absurd rate.
It was… demoralizing.
By the second week of November, Harry arrived yet again, shoulders slumped, and asked in a small voice:
"Am I… really stupid?"
Vaughan, still happily immersed in the joy of learning, replied without thinking, "Why would you think that?"
Harry sighed, lips moving like he wanted to explain—then he gave up entirely.
He lay flat on the carpet like a dead fish, staring at the ceiling.
"Go on," he muttered. "Let's just get it over with."
Vaughan: "..."
Only then did Vaughan realize something had gone wrong.
The Boy Who Lived had been broken.
And that wouldn't do.
A target that stopped resisting was useless.
Legilimency was far more effective when the subject fought back.
Vaughan grimaced, flipped through his book for a while, and finally found a solution.
"Harry," he said thoughtfully, "if you cooperate properly… after we're done, I'll cast a Dream Charm for you."
Harry's face remained blank. "What's the point?"
Vaughan smiled with sweet, shameless temptation.
"It'll give you a lovely dream—one where you can have anything you want."
He paused.
"For example… you could hold a certain girl's hand."
Harry shot upright like he'd been hit with a Stunning Spell, face blazing red.
"I told you—that wasn't my idea! I mean, dreams are… you know… maybe it just—"
Under Vaughan's amused, half-smiling stare, Harry's voice shrank into a pathetic mumble.
After a moment, he whispered, barely audible:
"…It really will be a nice dream?"
Vaughan nodded.
Harry fidgeted violently.
"Well—fine. Maybe. If I can sleep properly for once… that's reasonable, right?"
The next day, Vaughan was delighted to discover Harry's mind had produced a brand-new dream.
It was still hazy, still soft around the edges—washed in faint pink like a storybook sunset.
A small boy walked beside a girl half a head taller than him. They strolled side by side in quiet, innocent sweetness.
It looked… almost painfully beautiful.
Harry's consciousness fought desperately inside the memory.
But as Vaughan's control over Legilimency became smoother and sharper, it grew harder and harder for Harry to kick him out like he had in the beginning.
When the day's session ended—once again unsuccessful—Harry could only look at Vaughan pleadingly and remind him:
"You promised. You can't tell anyone about my dream."
He didn't really care about the rest.
After all, most of his memories were either the cupboard under the stairs or Hogwarts.
"I won't say a word," Vaughan promised calmly. "I'm a vault."
Reassured, Harry finally left.
Alone in the Room of Requirement, Vaughan lifted his wand to his temple and slowly drew out a thin thread of silver light.
A memory strand—containing everything he'd seen inside Harry's mind.
He hummed a lazy tune as he bottled the strand in a small vial.
Sealed it.
Then carried it up to the Headmaster's office.
"Hi, Albus," Vaughan said cheerfully. "Harry's freshly baked love story—want to see it?"
Dumbledore gave him a long look.
"Try not to say it as though we're indulging in voyeurism," he sighed—then added, far too gently, "Oh…"
Inside the Pensieve, the dreamy pink scene unfolded.
A child's first clumsy affection.
Dumbledore dabbed at the corner of his eye, suddenly sentimental.
But good dreams never lasted long.
The rosy haze skipped forward—
And the world turned grey.
Fragments of a boy's life at Number Four, Privet Drive streamed past them like scenery outside a speeding train: cramped, dark, suffocating years. Helplessness. Loneliness. Quiet humiliation that never ended.
After a long time, Dumbledore let out a tired breath.
"He's had so little happiness…"
"Yes," Vaughan said. "Outside Hogwarts… it's almost nonexistent. These are all the emotional anchors I've identified."
With a flick of his wand, Vaughan manipulated the Pensieve more skillfully than before.
Memory-smoke rose and rearranged into countless little windows—dense as a grid of Muggle security monitors.
From that angle, it was brutally obvious:
The dark, negative memories dominated almost everything.
The first true moment of light in Harry's life had been the day Hagrid delivered his Hogwarts letter.
When Vaughan had read the original story, Harry's childhood had taken only a small portion of the pages. The fairy-tale tone couldn't truly convey what it meant—
—to be a child rejected and despised by an entire household.
Watching the small Harry wear clothes too small and too torn, sleeping in a cupboard—
Vaughan spoke with bitter irony.
"You should count yourself lucky, Albus. That Harry didn't become another Tom."
"It's a miracle."
Dumbledore closed his eyes.
"Forgive an old man's… fear," he murmured. "The protection Lily left him requires blood ties to function. And I was afraid that if he grew up in the wizarding world—surrounded by praise and worship—he might drown in false glory."
Vaughan neither agreed nor disagreed.
No one could prove what would have happened.
He wasn't here to plead Harry's case, anyway.
He glanced at the memory grid and said, "So far, there's no sign Harry's memories have been tampered with. It seems Tom still hasn't noticed the connection between himself and Harry."
"Do not conclude too quickly," Dumbledore warned softly.
"Tom is a master of memory magic. In his youth, he excelled at slipping into other people's minds—burying poison deep inside their recollections, disguising it as dissatisfaction, resentment, anger."
"Then he would feed it. Link it. Magnify it."
"Until malice crushed reason… and the poor victims never even realized they had been twisted."
Vaughan listened carefully.
He had never been arrogant. He knew Dumbledore had far more experience—
and he knew his own Legilimency was still crude.
"Understood," Vaughan said. "I'll keep watching."
Harry could continue being his practice target.
That was—
truly—
excellent news.
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