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Damon's eyes followed his father's past self's falling body after being hit by his father's spell and flinched when the thump sounded in the room. He turned to his father, his eyes threatening to bulge out.
"What was that about?" he asked.
Future-Quinn raised his younger self's body and floated him into the seat Quinn had just vacated. Ropes sprung out from the wooden chair and wrapped around Quinn's arms, legs, and torso, securing him upright to the chair.
"Are you going to Obliviate him?"
Future-Quinn gazed at unconscious Quinn, all the fun and smiles gone from his face, and all that remained was a look of rumination. Damon observed his father's face, and he couldn't rember the last ti he had seen him look like that— sure, there were many tis he had seen his father contemplative while working, but this was the first ti it was like this.
"Us coming here revealed a lot about the future he shouldn't know, and I myself revealed a lot about the future to him," future-Quinn broke the silence. "Ti travel is complicated, especially what we're doing. For us to return ho safely, I couldn't allow him to retain mories of what he had retained here. It would've been all dandy for him, but we would've a lot of problems back ho."
Future-Quinn turned away from Quinn to a painting on the wall. He raised his hand for the sticking charm to co undone and the painting to float in front of him.
"Um, what are you doing?" asked Damon with an uncertain tone.
With a snap of his fingers, future-Quinn disassembled the fra and moved them away in the air, leaving behind the artwork floating in front of him.
"The mont we entered the office, he knew there was a possibility that his mory might be tampered with, so he took asures against it," said future-Quinn, half-chuckling.
Damon stepped closer to his father, and his eyes widened when he saw the canvas flip. Written in tiny black letters were lines upon lines of words, stretching from one corner of the canvas to the other, spanning across the length. He stepped ever closer and leaned forward to take a better look and recognized the context of the sentences through keywords.
"H-He wrote everything down?!" Damon said, sputtering, his eyes swarming between the canvas, his father, and the unconscious teenager.
"Of course, why wouldn't he?" said future-Quinn, matter-of-factly. "When you et soone from the future, it is beneficial that you sohow write it down . . . . I know him— he wouldn't have written anything in open view, so he wrote it down on the back of the painting.
There isn't any disadvantage for him because there isn't going to be any damage to his tiline, but because we decided to share the knowledge of the future, we have invited danger to our own tiline— and if we left him like this, our world would've changed quite a lot."
"But, but, if he knew there was a chance that his mory would be exchanged, then how would he rember that he has everything written down behind the painting?"
Future-Quinn swept his hand over the back of the canvas, and the words disappeared, leaving behind the clean canvas as it was before. Then he turned the canvas to the front to show the painting.
"This was painted by your Aunt Luna. Half of the artwork in this room was made by Luna." Future-Quinn pointed at the dismantled fra floating in the air. "However, this fra is special as she'd replace the painting in it every few months to keep the office— as she used to say— peppy. He knew that when Luna would remove the painting, she would notice the writing on the back that she clearly didn't write. He even made sure that Luna would co to him with the painting by telling her in the first line."
Damon's jaw slackened as he looked at Quinn. They were the sa age; how could he think all of this while all the crazy was happening.
"But, he's prideful in his skill with magic," said future-Quinn, scoffing with what sounded like self-deprecation. "He didn't think I would be able to sense him use magic. What a fool. How did he think that — I — wouldn't be able to sense — him — use magic."
The fra on the painting ca back together, and the assembled artwork was once again sent to the wall, fixed with a sticking charm. As if it had never been removed.
"I have a question," said Damon— there was sothing that bothered him. "If you were going to erase his mories, why would you spend the ti to tell him so much?"
"The Ti-Turner you have is nowhere near perfect, and you were a bigger fool to use it without knowing anything about it," a stern voice reprimanded Damon. "The device leaves the streams of ti in disarray, and the steams connecting here to our ho is distorted and traveling through that is dangerous and unstable— one could even get lost in the stream of ti, never to exit the steams to any single point in ti.
It didn't help that in a hurry, I worsened the distortion just so that I could catch up to you."
Damon's head flinched back, and his posture collapsed. Future-Quinn noticed the change in his son and slapped him on the back.
"Don't worry your foolish head about it; I would've reached you one way or another."
Damon nodded with his head down before he recalled his initial question. "But if you were looking to pass the ti, you could've obliviated him right off the bat. That would've eliminated the risk of him not writing things down."
There was a pause.
". . . It might not look like it, but he's going through a difficult ti right now," said future-Quinn, gazing at his unconscious self. "He's struggling with himself and a lot of things around him. He has a plan for everything till Hogwarts because he knew what was going to happen, but after that, it's a blank slate, he doesn't know what lies beyond it— and that scares him a lot . . . and I thought that talking to him would maybe alleviate so of his worries about the future— it's quite a frightening ti for him . . . ."
Damon gazed at his father and then at Quinn. He lowered his chin to his chest. He had not only added to Quinn when he was having a tough ti but also had dug up mories of those tis in his father.
". . . But with his mories erased, won't it all be useless," Damon asked.
"Let tell you a story, Damon," said future-Quinn, making Damon look up in surprise.
"Once, there were two people— Balbh and Dolion. Dolion was Balbh's maternal uncle, but they weren't close to each other as Balbh wasn't close to his mother's family, and thus he hadn't t Dolion until quite a while when Dolion's family invited Balbh to their ho. Dolion's family truly wanted to et Balbh and get to know him better— however, not all was good in the story. While Dolion's family had pleasant intentions, Dolion himself didn't follow the sa motive. He had other plans for Balbh. Dolion wanted to manipulate Balbh for his own benefit."
He turned to Damon and asked, "How do you think Dolion planned to accomplish that?"
Damon thought for a mont before he shook his head. "There are a lot of ways to accomplish it; however, with just what you have given , I don't think I can give you a single choice."
"Good child," Future-Quinn chuckled. "Yes, there can be many ways one can accomplish manipulation . . . However, Dolion had in his hands a thod that was essentially a sure way to manipulate to no end. One thing I haven't told you about dear Dolion is that he was a natural Legilins."
"A natural Legelins!" Damon gasped. "He was aiming to use mind magic to manipulate Balbh?"
"Indeed. But don't be surprised just yet. Dolion, with his natural talent, had accomplished sothing that even the more skilled Legelins with a wealth of experience found trendously difficult to achieve— he had found a way to exert complete control over a person . . . he had created a mind magic that would turn the target into a puppet, sothing worse than the Imperius Curse, with no hope of ever recovering."
Damon gulped. "Did this Dolion use that spell on Balbh?"
"Yes, he did. Dolion got close to Balbh to drop his guard and gain his confidence. When he thought he was close enough, Dolion drugged Balbh so that he could cast the spell without any problems . . .
But Dolion, like many in his position, was blinded by arrogance, drunk on his power, he had underestimated Balbh."
Damon listened intently.
"Balbh, while not a natural, was a Leglins. A skilled one at that. He was always suspicious of Dolion, and so even with Dolion trying to beco closer to him, Balbh never put his guard down and just pretended to be friendly. So when Dolion finally made his move, Balbh was ready— he took care of the drug he was fed and turned the tables on Dolion.
Not only that, he trumped Dolion in his own ga— Legilincy."
"But, wasn't Dolion a natural Legilins? Then how . . ."
"True," nodded future-Quinn, "Dolion had imnse potential; he could've been great and could've garnered people's admiration just like my own mind magic master, who was a dual natural Legilins and Occluncy. But, unlike my master and Balbh, he wasn't hardworking and simply depended on his talent and put in no work to improve his craft.
That allowed Balbh to be triumphant. And this is where things got interesting."
"Interesting, how?" asked Damon.
"You see, Balbh decided that he was going to exact so revenge and deal down so punishnt on his own. So, Balbh decided to erase Dolion's mories of not only their interactions, but he also went further down the line and began cleaning out experiences that made up so aspects of Dolion's personality.
Now, if Balbh had left it there, Dolion's mind would've filled the gaps on his own with suitable mories that would've been compatible with Dolion. But Balbh didn't stop there. He interjected into that process and started dropping suggestions on every blank spot— suggestions that went against Dolion's original experiences. He had learned of Dolion's likes and dislikes during their ti together, so he knew what to plant that'd make . . . Dolion less Dolion.
When Balbh was done, he had planted enough suggestions that with ti, Dolion would change away from his original personality. Of course, the results weren't as perfect as Balbh had expected, but he had indeed 'modified' the Dolion into sothing different— in a way, it was similar to what Dolion had wanted to do him."
Future-Quinn turned to Quinn and spoke, "I'm going to do the sa to him—."
"What?!" Damon all but shouted out of shock. "!! But that—!"
"Listen, first. I swear kids these days are in such a hurry," future-Quinn sighed. "I'm not going to change his personality. What I am going to do is to follow the sa procedure that Balbh implented and go into his mories and plant suggestions that'd create a certain effect I am aiming for."
"What kind of effect?"
"He'd interpret them as gut feelings, hunches, intuition. There are a few things he needs to sort out, so I'm going to try to guide him into directions and choices that'd be beneficial to him," said future-Quinn before sighing. "I'm crossing the one line I know I shouldn't cross, but it is for his own good." He chuckled, "If he ever found what I did to him, which he isn't going to, he'd be mighty pissed at — he might even make it his mission to hunt us down just so that he could fight ."
"How are you so sure that he'd never find out," asked Damon. "Also, didn't you say that in Balbh and Dolion's case, the result wasn't as Balbh had expected."
"Dolion never found out because his skill overshadowed by Balbh. Even if Dolion got better, it'd been too late as his mind would've assimilated those suggestions as its own creations. And the reason why the result wasn't exactly the sa as Balbh had desired was that the skill difference wasn't big enough, and Balbh himself wasn't skilled enough," said future-Quinn.
He looked at his son and raised his chin, and spoke with confidence flooding out from his tongue. "I don't overshadow him in skill," he pointed at Quinn, "I dwarf him in skill. Not only will he never find out, but my magic will also bloom into the exact result that I want. After all, I have forty years on Balbh when he cast the magic on Dolion."
"Now, step aside and observe as I show you sothing spectacular," said future-Quinn as magic obeyed his command.
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Quinn stepped out of the Guide's Vault and stretched his hands over his head. Even though the vault was complete and ready to be used, there were still a few things that he thought could be smoothened out. It was crucial that the vaults remained functioning for years to co because he didn't know when he would return to Hogwarts in the future, and that is if he ever returned; as such, ensuring that none of his casted magic would fizzle out for quite so ti.
'Well, with ti, Hogwarts would assimilate the vault into its ecosystem,' he thought.
"I wonder how the magic would change," Quinn muttered to himself, interested in how Hogwarts would affect his magic. "Maybe a visit to Hogwarts, a couple decades from now, is warranted."
Quinn slipped his hands into his pocket and retrieved his trusty piece of reinforced off-white cloth, magically converted into the Hogwarts-exclusive artifact known as RECON, the massively upgraded version of the Marauder's Map. It was the state-of-art solution to all Hogwarts-related stalking and the key to almost all doors in Hogwarts castle.
"Let's see. . . the path is clear. The train is going to leave for slumber town in . . . right about now," Quinn sighed with a smile; for so reason, he felt like there was a spring in his step, and all the tension and stress accumulated because of the Sin curse had been drained clean of him.
He checked his soulspace, "Well, it's still there . . . ."
There was a long silence as Quinn stared at his soulscape and the infestation of the Sin curse.
". . . I should take care of this as soon as possible," he muttered to himself— sothing told him that the faster he got rid of it, the better it'd be.
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Quinn West - MC(Present) - Suffered an unknown betrayal.
Quinn West - MC(Future) - Hope we never et again.
Damon West - Future West - Dreading what's waiting for him back ho.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - Took inspiration from The Second Coming of Gluttony's FIRST chapter. I have yet to read beyond that.
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The link is in the synopsis!
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