Lucas walked down the empty corridor, alone. The sound of his footsteps echoed faintly off the stone walls. He was waiting for something to happen but didn't notice anything off. He had been trying to bait Harry into attacking him ever since the second trial, but today again it seemed to be fruitless.
A hand grabbed his shoulder. A wand jammed into his back.
He stilled.
No one spoke for a second.
Then Harry's voice came in a low yet sharp tone. "What in Merlin's name do you think you are doing?"
Lucas waited a moment to reply, because he inspected Harry, or more precise tried to find the reason why he had managed to stay undetected in his domain. He felt the same as always. Weak yet confident, wearing the same Hogwarts robes as always. A bit of arrogance in there too.
The only difference was the inconspicuous invisibility robe loosely hanging off his shoulders, too inconspicuous.
It was different to the normal ones Lucas had encountered before. Those didn't stop sound or smell. This one masked everything. 'Can it stop spells?'
However that didn't matter now.
Lucas tilted his head slightly, enough to show he wasn't surprised, even though he had to admit he was.
It wasn't enough to look into Harry's eyes though.
"Finally," he said. His voice was steady. "Starting to think you had lost your spine."
Harry didn't respond. The wand stayed pressed on Lucas's back.
Lucas slowly raised his hands in mock compliance. "You going to do it?" He asked, calm as ever. "End it right here?"
Harry's grip tightened. "You think this is a game?" he hissed. "After what you did to Ron?"
Lucas let out a short breath, almost a laugh. "Ron would have broken on his own. I just helped him crack faster."
"You twisted his mind."
"Come on Harry, I didn't twist anything. I just told him what he already believed. You'd be amazed how loud people's thoughts get when you show them what's deep down. You of all people should know."
Harry shoved him harder with the wand. "Stop talking."
Lucas lowered his arms slightly. "Why? Afraid I'll say something true?"
Silence.
Then Lucas turned just enough to look at Harry out of the corner of his eye.
"No Legilimency. No tricks. Just you and me. Go on, Harry. Do something."
Harry didn't move.
Lucas' voice dropped. "See? That's what I thought. Still standing there, hoping someone else will save you from making a choice. At some point you have to step up and make the hard decisions."
The wand stayed pressed to Lucas's back, but the hesitation was clear.
"I gave you a week," Lucas continued. "A week of my world. And you still can't face me like a man."
Harry breathed hard through his nose. "I'm not afraid of you."
Lucas smiled, just slightly. "Good. Then prove it."
Harry stepped back, yanking the cloak off and shoving it to the floor.
"Fine," he said. "Then duel me. Right here without any tricks."
Lucas turned fully, now facing him, brow raised with quiet amusement. "A proper duel?"
Harry nodded stiffly. "Wands only. No Legilimency."
Lucas chuckled. "So... the coward's version."
Harry's jaw clenched. "We bow. Count to three and cast when ready."
Lucas shrugged off his outer robe, unhurried. "Alright, then."
They stepped back, ten paces between them in the empty corridor.
Lucas bowed lazily, barely dipping his head. Harry followed with a stiffer, more formal motion.
"One," Harry called.
Lucas just stood, loose and relaxed.
"Two."
Harry's wand twitched.
"Three."
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, wand slashing forward.
Lucas barely moved. His wand flicked once. "Protego."
The spell bounced off the shimmering shield like it meant nothing.
"Stupefy!"
Another flick.
Harry's spell shattered on impact. Lucas didn't counterattack, not yet.
"Come on," Harry snapped, already breathing heavier, "fight back."
Lucas sighed. "You sure?"
"Do it!"
Lucas moved fast this time. His wand flicked impossibly quickly, twice.
"Expulso." "Incarcerous."
The floor under Harry's feet erupted. He was thrown back against the wall with a grunt, dust filling the air.
Thick ropes snapped around Harry's arms and legs before he could recover, dragging him to the floor.
Lucas walked forward slowly, wand still raised.
"Disarmed in one spell," he said. "Tied up in two."
Harry struggled, gasping through the dust.
Lucas crouched beside him. "Still as weak as I remember. Still as embarrassing. You could have died in one. Just a bit higher and. *Puff*. Gone."
Lucas crouched lower, so that he could speak directly into his ear. "You thought anger would be enough? That it would overshadow your abysmal spell work?"
Harry growled, still fighting the ropes. His wand was just out of reach, fingers scraping the floor.
"Maybe if you at some point learned what real hatred is then this might actually make up for your pathetic magic. Until then how about you actually try to learn things, how about that? I mean did you at any point actually give it a try? Or did you think as the boy who lived you didn't need to?"
When Harry didn't respond Lucas continued, "I did. Ever since that Troll in the first year I spent almost every waking moment training to get stronger. I spent countless days exercising until I couldn't move. And look where that brought me. Right here, standing above you. Able to play with the minds of the people you care about so easily and you can't do anything against it. Tell me Harry, was the complacency worth it?"
When no answer came, Lucas turned away, "thought so."
As he was walking away, Harry's breath paused, something shifted inside his head.
A rush of rage.
It hit like a flood. Unstoppably, unreasoning and unrelenting. Hatred so sharp it hurt.
"Ah," Lucas murmured. "There you go."
Harry screamed furiously in wild hatred.
The ropes burned away in a flash of wild, unfocused magic.
He grabbed his wand and fired.
"Reducto!"
The spell shot toward Lucas's back with even sloppier wandwork.
It fizzled out midair. A harmless puff of heat.
Lucas turned slowly. He didn't look surprised.
"Better," he said. "Still not enough. Let me show you how it should be done."
Then he walked away, hands in his pockets, like nothing had happened. His outer robe floated back to him.
Harry stood there, chest heaving, the rage was gone as quick as it had come.
He looked down and froze.
Where his hand had been, only a stump remained.
His severed hand lay on the ground still clutching his wand.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!!" He screamed out of panic, yet there was neither pain nor blood.
Lucas casually vanished around the corner, as if he hadn't just maimed someone, towards getting a bite to eat.
----
Lucas pushed open the doors to the Great Hall.
It was quiet and a bit late for Lunch. A few students lingered over half-finished meals. Professors sat scattered at the staff table. Quiet conversations here and there.
Then.
A snap.
It wasn't a sound, not truly.
More like a tear through his mind.
Two bright minds just right next to his vanished.
Just gone.
Devoured by the darkness, falling into ruin.
Akane.
Yuki.
Without warning. Without struggle.
The connection severed in a blink.
Lucas stopped moving. His breath caught in his throat. For a heartbeat, he didn't feel anything.
Then everything came crashing down. The small hot spring in japan, the faces of the two Kitsune, the laughter and warm memories. The innocense.
He tried to hold it back, but the emotion slipped through his control. An uncontained and unchecked crushing grief poured out of him.
Students in the hall paused mid-sentence, confused. Some blinked rapidly, suddenly overwhelmed by a sadness they couldn't explain. A girl at the Ravenclaw table began to cry without knowing why. A boy nearby put his head in his hands, shaking. Slowly almost everyone had teary eyes and a knot in their chest.
Not even the professors were spared. Professor Sprout gripped the edge of the table. Flitwick's hand instinctively cast a protego.
Then, without transition, the grief twisted into rage.
Candles turned into bright torches. Goblets shattered across the tables. Plates cracked down the middle. The lights along the walls flared up.
Lucas' eyes were fixed on nothing. He stood there, rigid, his face blank, while everything around him started to come apart.
The grief had collapsed inward, and at its center, an inferno of rage had begun to take shape.
The mood in the hall flipped.
Now it was chaos. Pure, directionless aggression.
A Hufflepuff boy slammed his fists into the table, screaming at no one. Two Slytherin students stood up and turned on each other, wands half-raised before they even realized it. A girl from Gryffindor grabbed her friend by the collar.
At the staff table, Flitwick was already casting counter-charms, putting the worst to sleep and calming others. Sprout shouted something, but her voice was drowned out by the rising noise.
----
The castle blurred around him.
Lucas didn't stop. He blasted the corridor doors to ashes, ignoring the gasping students, the panicked calls from professors, the wands raised too late to do anything. His magic flared with every step, flickering around his body like a second skin. The only thing in his mind was the clearing. The poison. The man.
His boots hit the edge of the forest. Branches snapped in front of him. Trees moved out of the way.
Every step was faster than the last. He didn't care. Couldn't care.
They were gone.
They were gone.
He reached the clearing in seconds that felt like a lifetime.
It was empty at first.
Then, a ripple in the bark of a giant tree. A hooded figure stepped out of it, calm as ever, as if he'd been expecting him.
"You came quickly," the man said, smooth, almost amused.
Lucas had learned from the last time and had forcefully calmed his emotions, however, his domain sneakily enveloped his opponent. "You killed them."
The faintest tilt of the man's head. "You know, interesting."
Lucas didn't react to the man's displeasure. Instead he focused on how his mind looked. It was dim and pusling in a grey hue. With every beat the man's mind tried to make itself small, covering before the grey.
"You lied."
"Hehe." A devious laughter resounded in the clearing. "Maybe."
"But I did tell you last time that your actions would have consequences, didn't I?" The puppet continued. "Ah, here they are."
A decapitated head appeared in each of the hooded figure's hands.
Lucas didn't flinch, made numb through his Legilimency.
The sight of Akane's soft features, her hair still wet, Yuki's small face, eyes wide, mouth open as if mid sentence.
It did break him.
Not outwardly.
But deep inside.
His other mind had in the meantime found the origin of the grey light. A mirror deep in the man's mind, which had a connection to somewhere else, to the real culprit he was talking to. As far as Lucas could tell the puppet that stood in front of him wouldn't be able to live on his own anymore. He was more like a two year old toddler in terms of mental capacities. The rest was hijacked by the mirror.
The puppet twisted the heads slightly, as if admiring them. "They were beautiful, you know. It was almost a shame. But, you should've followed instructions, Foster."
Lucas took one step forward, the ground beneath his foot trembled.
"Give them to me," he said, devoid of any emotions.
The puppet tilted its head again, considering Lucas as if weighing whether to entertain the request. Then, with a careless shrug, it tossed the heads forward.
They didn't fall.
They stopped midair, suspended by Lucas's magic before they could touch the ground. With a slow breath, he drew them gently toward himself. They hovered beside him, cradled by invisible hands.
Lucas didn't respond to the provocations. He had to prolong this encounter for as long as possible in order to track where the mirror led.
So he let his words come slow and cold.
"You wanted me to feel helpless?" Lucas said, taking another slow step forward. "You killed a woman and a child to make a point?"
"You know," the puppet said, voice regaining its theatrical edge, "you really are exhausting when you're dramatic. All that silence, all that seething stoicism. It's very 'tragic anti-hero,' but a bit cliché, don't you think?"
Lucas didn't answer.
He was carefully working in the puppet's mind again, weaving his magic into the edges of the mirror, slowly corrupting it. This time he was more careful. He didn't want its head to explode again.
"You're not curious why I did it?" the puppet went on. "I mean, most people would at least scream a bit. Or cry. Or beg. You're just standing there like an angry statue."
Lucas let his lips twitch. Just barely. "That would've made you happy, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, ecstatically," the puppet said, clasping its hands mockingly. "You screaming? That would've been art. But this…" It gestured vaguely. "This 'stoic vengeance' thing? Bit overdone. Bit tired. Needs workshopping."
Lucas reached into the mirror. It still pulsed mainly grey, but now there was a slight hint of orange, too subtle to notice if you didn't know it was there. Not enough for Lucas to see glimpses of the other side, but not far off.
"You talk too much," Lucas said.
"And you..." the puppet said with exaggerated offense, "are just rude. Honestly, I kill your family and you don't even react? Did Akane and Yuki mean nothing to you?"
Lucas finally managed to reach the other side. Something gave off a resonance, low and throbbing, almost like…
Music?
Yes. Distant, someone was playing or listening to music on the other side. That wasn't enough for Lucas, it could have been anyone. He needed something concrete.
With a bold push he finally got what he was looking for a beautifully crafted piece of jewelry hanging around the neck of whoever was in front of the mirror on this side. Lucas didn't look up, out of fear that he would be caught, however, this kind of jewelry was a one of a kind, like the queen's crown. Enough to find the owner if he digged in some history books.
The puppet, oblivious, clicked its tongue. "Nothing? Not even a twitch? Honestly, you're making this a bit one-sided."
Lucas finally raised his eyes. "You're not real enough to be offended. Just another pawn that explodes as soon as I use Legilimency."
"Bummer. At least I am not the one with the dead lover haha." The man behind the puppet couldn't help but twist the knife in Lucas' feelings once more. "Anyway, you did splendid, but could you give our dear Harry Potter a bigger push. I don't doubt your capabilities, but I fear my Lord would be greatly disappointed with Harry's abilities as they are currently. Don't be disappointing, you know what happens. Toodeloo!"
The puppet stepped back into the shadow of the tree and was devoured by its bark again. Gone.
A crack just loud enough to hear, but not too loud to startle someone, split the silence.
The question of why Dumbledore knew the exact location of this meeting and when it was over never occured to Lucas in the moment. His eyes were locked on the two floating heads.
The headmaster studied them for a moment, before his gaze shifted to the soon to be emotional wreck next to him. He could have done something to protect them, but then he would have needed to stretch his resources far wider than he was comfortable with, but now he saw that that was a bad desicion on his part.
He could already feel the first signs of Lucas' emotions becoming restless. It was just a matter of time until he slipped out of his control.
But nothing came.
He had in some form managed to get his thoughts and feelings back under control, but Dumbledore did think about that this might be the last time or just a trick.
Lucas became unnaturally still. His back straightening. His breath evening. The heads floated beside him like weren't a sick man's trophies. He had suppressed all of his emotions.
Dumbledore's expression did not shift. His voice, when it came, was as mild and dry as winter wind. "I take it this was not an act of random cruelty."
Lucas turned to face him at last, and in that moment, there was no grief in him. Not rage. Not sorrow. Just the distant, thoughtful calm of someone watching a fire burn behind a pane of glass.
"No."
Dumbledore regarded him in silence. His eyes, however, remained dim. "I presume you attempted to trace the source."
Lucas shook his head. Not slow enough to seem mournful. Not fast enough to seem eager. "These are the consequence of me trying precisely that."
Dumbledore hummed, a thin, unimpressed sound.
"I see." His fingers laced behind his back, robes whispering softly with the movement. He stepped past Lucas, approaching the tree where the puppet had vanished, as if expecting some final echo to remain. There was nothing left, of course. Just the faint imprint of a scuffed footprint.
He turned back. "What did you talk about this time?"
"They're not done with Harry. They said he isn't progressing fast enough. They want him pressured even more."
The headmaster could see that, he also was disappointed in Harry. His pushes the last few years seemed to have done little to guide the boy into the direction he needed to go. His parents weren't any help either with their scepticism for his ways. 'Maybe if Harry knew what happens when he stays in his stagnant ways, then...'
"I imagine they feel the same about you." Dumbledore studied the husk of a human standing before him. Devoid of emotions. 'They had to be very close.'
It was regrettable really. He could have used them to 'recruit' Lucas to fight against Voldemort. Two natural Legilimens fighting against each other would be tremendously helpful for Harry. Maybe he should have paid more attention to what he was up to in Japan.
Now he needed to use the vials for that, which brought a sense of uncertainty with them if everything goes according to his plans.
Regardless, he had made a decision.
"You are neither angry nor sorrowful." the headmaster went on, stepping closer. "That tells me two things. One, you are no longer here with me, mentally."
Another step.
"And two, from here on you are very dangerous"
The elder wand slid into his hand.
"You will make an Unbreakable Vow, Mr. Foster."
Lucas's eyes narrowed, a slither of emotions returning to his face. "I imagine I don't have a say in this?"
A decision to be forceful with his plans. He had doubled down on not protecting Lucas and he would use any means necessary to force Lucas to accept his one sided vow. Even if it meant Sophia fell into the others' hands as well.
Dumbledore didn't blink. "No."
At the same time a spell left the elder wand, however, nothing could really surprise Lucas.
He felt the immense magical force behind the spell easily forcing its way through his domain, instead of fighting it he apparated away.
Unfortunately, Dumbledore unproblematically followed him. Another spell already shot.
Lucas apparated again and Dumbledore was on his heels, closer and faster.
It didn't matter what idea Lucas thought of, the headmaster effortlessly countered it.
Apparate farther? He would never overcome the distance Dumbledore could.
Fight the spell? Lucas already knew from their last fight that he would be on the loosing end.
Hide? Dumbledore tracked his apparation.
Go to Hogsmead and use Legilimency to get a meat shield? The headmaster could easily cover the incident up.
While Lucas futilely fought back, Dumbledore got closer and closer, until the spell actually connected.
The headmaster stood over the stunned ex-Hufflepuff and quickly cast a few more spells to make sure that Lucas would agree to anything he wanted to.