"Oh great! Back here again!" the jet-black-haired boy muttered under his breath. He kept walking and walking, trying to trace the path he used before, where he met the black labrador, but all he could see are all the same, white walls and floors.
"Hey doggy! Where are you? Why am I here again? What happened?" he continuously shouted to no one. But then, memories came crashing onto his head.
"Oh Gods! I did it again, this time with Hermione. AHG! You're so stupid Iro!" he scowled himself. The boy then started to run as he wanted this dream to get over with and see what he had done to others.
"I hope they're okay," he mumbled nervously as his heart started to pound so fast. Suddenly, he abruptly stopped as he felt a faint familiarity of power now emitting from somewhere.
"They are fine, young hero." Said by a voice inside his head. "Do not worry anymore, you managed to retrieve the darkness before you passed out." The boy released a sigh of relief as he heard the news the voice gave to him. Iro then checked his surroundings to see who's voice it belonged to.
"She's definitely not the dog I met the last time." he thought. And the voice then came again, but this time, coming a bit far away from his back.
"You are right, Hecuba is just my subordinate, young hero" Iro then looked behind him and saw the owner of the voice. There stood a beautiful but deathly pale skin lady. She has black eyes, blonde hair and wore a dark, sleeveless gown that seemed to ripple as if the cloth was ink spilling. She's radiating an incredible amount of power and it could feel to all corners of this endless room. Iro must have a quiver like any other creature in front of this lady, but for some reason, he feels like it is not the first time he faced a powerful being like her.
"Who are you? And what am I doing here again?" Iro asked immediately. But she just smiled and started walking closer towards the jet-black haired boy.
"Well, for now, you could regard me as Night Walker. Nonetheless, my identity is not what you needed to know, young hero. You need to learn that what happened to you before I summoned you here almost cost your hold in your past. Fortunately, I managed to do something before anything happened."
The young boy stared a bit longer at the lady, "What do you mean, hold to my past?" he asked frantically when he breaks from his confusion.
"And why do you keep calling me young hero? Even that black dog from last time." He continued. The first time the dog regarded him like that, he just thought that it's because he's english name is hero. But hearing from this all powerful lady, there might be something behind it and not just because of his name. But the Night Walker just smiled at him.
"Be warned, Íroas, never looked in that mirror again. I would not be able to help and mend you the next time." she paused and narrowed her eyes to the young boy who is still having a muddled expression. "If you do, you would lose everything that your soul holds. – Now, wake up, it is time for the incantation" and with that, the Night Walker vanished into thin air leaving Iro with more questions. The room then started to blur until nothingness devoured the vision of the boy.
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HARRY
The sun would rise any moment now, and we're still in front of the hospital wing entrance. Professor McGonagall has been scolding me and Ron for about half an hour already. And we've been listening to all her rants ever since we came here with Hermione this early hour. We ran onto her and stopped us both aside from Hermione who she let go inside to look after Iro.
"Harry are you listening to me!?" Professor McGonagall asked, snapping me out from my thoughts.
"Yes professor, sorry" she then looked at us, examining our expressions.
"Very well, you two may go inside now." She finally said and left us hooked up from all the scolding she gave. When she's out of sight, Ron then leaned closer to me and whispered, "She's a nightmare, really. And how come only the two of us received all the nogging, how about Hermione?"
I released a sigh and looked at him with my exhausted eyes, "Just be thankful she didn't deduct us points or give us detention. Even from Dumbledore himself." Both Ron and I exhaled and went inside and looked for Iro's bed.
When we found them, Iro wasn't sleeping as I expected, instead, he's standing beside his bed next to Hermione and both the tips of their wands placed over their hearts, then immediately released the contact and hid it in their pockets. I was about to ask what they did with their wands but Ron interjected me.
"Hey Iro! You're awake now. How are you, mate?" he said earning the attention of the two with a surprised expression.
"Oh, hello there Ron, Harry. Yeah, I just woke up before you got here. Thanks for asking, I'm fine now." He nervously answered. I narrowed my eyes at him as he exchanged glances with Hermione nervously, as if having an inside conversation. But I eventually brushed off the thought when I remembered something.
"Hey Iro, good thing you're okay now. I just wanted to say sorry for forcing you to look..." But he cut me off.
"W – w – wait Harry, stop. It's not your fault, okay?"
"But I force you to look at yourself in the mirror. If I just listened to you when you first warned me, it shouldn't have happened to you."
"No Harry, it's not. You didn't force me; I go there on my own accord. Plus, stop blaming yourself for what happened to me. No one knows that that stupid mirror would give me headache." I was about to protest but he just raised his hand to me indicating me to stop, and I did. Then Hermione started to speak,
"But Iro, what did you see there in the mirror that made you... fainted?" the three of us looked at him curiously.
"Actually, I saw nothing..." he began, and that made me more confused, "Well, I mean I saw something... someone, but they have no faces." It made us all gasped in horror as he said that.
"What do you mean no face? Is that what you desired to see?" Ron immediately asked.
"No! of course not! - What I saw are just silhouettes of people. They are all just black... shadows... I don't actually understand. When I tried to, my head started to ache so badly, my body started to weaken, and I felt so vulnerable that time. So, when Harry starts shaking my body, I guess my ability triggered and acted on its own, trying to protect me."
"But why do you think you only see black figures. Isn't the mirror supposed to show you what you desired the most? Then, why see nothing? Their faces, at least" Iro didn't answer Hermione immediately, and looked at his fingers, intertwining each of them, then he released a sigh.
"I think it has something to do about what the sorting hat had told me." We just looked at him, being intrigued. Reminded by his gloomy expression and puzzled face when he was sorted.
"You see, it said that I have... other memories that I'm not aware of. And it's somehow locked inside my mind. The hat said even he can't break the wall that separates the memories, considering that he could break into anyone's mind even from the greatest occlumens."
I raised an eyebrow to the last word he just said, "Occlumens?" Both Ron and I asked in unison.
"Occlumens is the person who uses Occlumency; It is an act of magically closing one's mind against Legilimency." Hermione explained, "The Sorting hat uses Legilimency to interpret our thoughts and respond to us mentally. Legilimency is an act of navigating through the many layers of a person's mind, like mind reading." she continued.
Iro then let out a low cough and said, "Yeah! So anyways, he told that to me. The hat then added that in there, as if there's no key hole to at least be peek at, he couldn't see even a tiniest memory inside." He paused, "But I think the hat is wrong in that part, there's a way to look at my locked memories." He finilized, then he looked straight to my eyes with a knowing expression.
"How?" Hermione and Ron asked at the same time. I asked myself as I have the same question. Slowly, upon realization started to hit me, I let out a heavy gasp and looked at my childhood friend with an anticipated face.
"Dreams..." I muttered.
"Wait! But if you could see them in your dreams, how come you still don't know even a bit of information about your other memories." Hermione asked in single breath, as her expression was full of questions. I then decided to answer her for Iro.
"He doesn't remember any of them, literally, anything. He'll just wake up with tears. It happens all the time. And it's been like that ever since I knew him."
"What do you mean tears, Harry? I never saw him like that." Ron asked confusedly, which made me and Iro chuckle, breaking the tension that we hadn't noticed we were building.
"Yeah, we know you don't Ron. He's always the one who wakes up first. It's kind of funny actually, we've been literally sleeping on the same roof for months now and none of you haven't noticed anything to him every morning." I panted between my laughs while massaging my tummy.
"Shhhhh just continue your story Iro" Hermione impatiently hissed, waiting to break the suspense.
"Err, Harry's... a bit right," Iro continued, which made me stop from laughing and looked at him in confusion.
"Well, he's right about the dreams being a way to peek in my other memories, he's also right about me waking almost every day with tears. But he's a bit wrong in not remembering something in my dreams. I actually remembered three of them"
"What! But you never told me that!" I exclaimed to him, but he just rolled his eyes.
"Err... sorry Harry, the first is kind of complicated so I didn't mind telling you. Then the next happened when we had our last argument, so I haven't had the chance to tell you. Then the last has just happened now."
"I never thought you'd remember something in your dreams Iro. – So, what about those?" Iro released a sigh and pondered before he started his story. We were just looking at him like kids waiting for their grandma to tell them a story.
"Uhm... the first is I'm not actually sure if it really is a dream or real. I was 7 that time when it happened. I thought I saw a girl, looking at me and she started to cry when she saw my eyes, we were in my room back then. - I was laying on my bed while she's standing, looking at my face. I closed my eyes then. And when I woke up, the girl wasn't there anymore. I asked my Aunt if someone visited me that night but she said that no one came over." Iro explained in a single breath, and we all stayed silent. Then he started to tell the next two dreams that he remembered. About the endless white room, the talking black Labrador dog, the warning it gave, then about the lady who regarded herself as the Night Walker.
"You know what, it's kind of stupid if you asked me." Hermione hissed, earning the attention from us all, "Warning you about something but didn't specifically say where not to look at. See what happened to you because of their useless warning!" she frustratedly continued. And I must say, she's right. - 'As always!'
"Yeah mate, she's right, it's kind of stupid you know. But at least, the lady helped you. Whatever she's talking about, losing everything that your soul holds. I think you should really listen to her, and not to look at that mirror again. I don't want a soulless friend you know" Ron said in a sarcastic sort of tone. It made me and Hermione chuckle, breaking all the thriller and suspense that have been happening.
"Oh! Right I remember, don't worry about the mirror Iro. Dumbledore said that he would move that mirror to another place." I added.
"Yeah! So, to summarize, Iro here is like he has amnesia, yet not because he remembered pretty much everything that happened in his life. But I still don't get why you only saw dark figures in the mirror" Ron suddenly interjected. About the last sentence he had said, it made me also question, but not about the mirror, instead, to the she-dog and the lady in Iro's dream. - 'Their identity and role in Iro's life.'
"Can't you understand Ron? Something is blocking his mind. Whatever that mirror is showing, it's clearly from the memories that are locked inside his head." Hermione emphasized every word to him.
"Oh!"
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