Chapter 3: Ch 2 Let's save him... Part 1
[ASSIMILATING...]
This mechanical sound was the first thing he heard when he became aware.
But the weird thing was, that while he was aware, he still wasn't fully awake...if that made sense.
He was in some kind of an intermediate state, where he seemed to be dreaming but his mind was fully alert.
It was like one of those lucid dream things, where you're asleep but you still have some control over your thoughts and your actions...
He slowly looked around him and noticed that he was in some kind of a void but... it wasn't a completely empty void.
No, all around him he could see rolls and rolls of big and small films, filled with all kinds of vivid images, they were somewhat like those reel-things people used before the invention of digital cameras.
Sam didn't know why but he somehow had the feeling that these 'rolls of films' were in fact... memories. Memories that he could browse through.
On the whole, the memories seemed to be placed in no particular order and were just haphazardly lying in all directions. But there seemed to be some kind of an invisible line that divided the chaos of memories into two with him in the middle, with the memories on the left side having a much higher quantity of reels than the ones on the right.
Just as Sam was trying to find a way to look closer, he was startled when a reel abruptly leapt from the left side and came to a stop right in front of him and before he could comprehend the situation, the film started rolling and showing him the memories inside it.
But it wasn't anything like watching those flickering old movies... No, every time an image passed on the screen in front of him, Sam was suddenly transported into the memory it represented as if he was reliving it... It felt like a VR but a hundred times better.
But the memories moved quite fast... as if he was watching a day's worth of content compressed into just a few minutes. Only if he really focused did they slow down enough for him to understand them.
Sam didn't have a body in this void so he couldn't move away from the screen and was somewhat strapped to a seat and forced to watch these memories.
The first few memories were those of his childhood...
When he was brought into this world (Ugh!), when he was abandoned a few days later by a young girl (which he definitely didn't care about, Humph!!), and then began the oh! so wonderful life at the orphanage.
But it wasn't long before a change occurred...
Instead of coming from the left, this time a memory jumped out from the right side...The memories still seemed to be those of a toddler, it's just that this time instead of a brown-haired toddler this one contained a red-haired one...
Unlike the embarrassment and irritation, Sam felt while watching his own toddler days, he was kind of fascinated by these new ones because... they were magical.
The memories began alternating from the left and the right side from then on... and he only needed to watch a few more from the right side to realise who the red-haired kid was...
Yep! It was none other than the youngest son of the Weasley household, the third pillar of the infamous golden trio, the man who was always accused of putting his foot in his mouth, and the man who somehow got 'the girl' in the end... Ronald Weasley.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sam was stuck with this weird feeling of Deja vu, as if he was forgetting something, as if he should know why he was being made to watch the memories of a character from the Harry Potter series... But for the life of him, he just couldn't get to the answers.
It was almost at the tip of his tongue but he just couldn't remember it.
It was as if... as if his thoughts were being suppressed by someone as if they were being restricted so that he could only focus on the memories... and Sam didn't mind that too much because he absolutely loved the Harry Potter series.
He could almost be considered a part-time Harry Potter nerd, who had not only watched all the films when they were released but had also read the first five books front to back. So, of course, he was very interested in watching Ron's memories.
As a fan of the series, going through these memories was as if he was being given a unique opportunity to watch additional behind-the-scenes content that had never been released to the masses... it was all very exhilarating.
He sat through the magical memories of Ron with his full focus while fast-forwarding through the boring memories of the orphanage.
But even when he was completely focused, the roll of memories still moved fast enough that he barely had time to savour them, and could only vaguely remember one after it was finished and the next one began.
But they were still very entertaining so he didn't mind it too much...
One after the other, he went through the unseen life of Ron in the Weasley household, of when the red-haired boy took his first steps, of when he spoke his first words, of when his little sister was born, of when he saw magic for the first time, of when he was pranked by the twins for the first time, of how delighted he was when the first word out of Ginny's mouth was Ron, of when he stole his mother's wand and was punished, of how sad he felt when everyone forgot his birthday because they were too busy, of how jealous he left when Ginny got a brand new Harry Potter book set for her birthday while all he got was pair off hand me down gloves, of how lonely he felt when all his brothers left for Hogwarts...
Sam didn't notice it but every single memory had emotions accompanying it and they were having a very profound impact on his psyche... but Sam was too excited at the moment to feel it as it was finally time for the best part, the memories of Hogwarts.
They began of course with the journey to the train station, then came the first awkward meeting between the golden trio, then the sorting, then the troll, then the quidditch match, then the duel, then the mirror, then the investigations into Nicholas Flamel, then the dragon Norberta, then the exams, the obstacle course behind trap door...and then finally the knockout by the chess piece.
The first year ended with the year-end celebrations... and the second one began immediately with the summer rescue, then came the Weasley-Malfoy feud in the bookstore, then the flying car, then the detentions, then the petrifications, and so on... until the year-end celebration.
Another year ended and the third began with the news of the Azkaban breakout...
On and on the memories went one after the other and the years slowly started blurring into each other as Sam lost himself in the hallowed halls of Hogwarts. His mind had gone numb at some point and he was just soaking up all the memories like a hungry sponge...
It was only when Ron started going through puberty, and as his already intense emotions became even more extreme, that Sam began to notice the effect the red-haired boy's feelings were having on him.
Every time Ron felt envy, jealousy, anger, lust, or any other emotion, Sam felt them too, and ever so slowly these emotions began to resonate with him... until it became hard to distinguish between them.
At this point, Sam slowly had lost all his initial excitement and started to feel that it might not be such a good thing to go through these memories if he was going to lose his sense of self at the end.
But there was nothing he could do other than just focus a bit less on the painful parts so that they pass by a faster.
The fourth year came with the Triwizard tournament and brought along its own share of a new range of emotions, most particularly among them being... betrayal, envy, guilt, loneliness, fear and a few more of the good stuff.
He didn't know when but at some point, his mind had gone completely blank.
He didn't even notice when the fourth year ended and the fifth began... but one thing he was thankful for was that the fifth was a lot calmer than the fourth. It seems that Ron had finally matured a bit, plus instead of the shitty teenage emotions, the most prevalent emotion this year was fear... fear of You-Know-Who.
The year was also a lot more hectic, what with all the studying for the owls and the DA sessions.
So nothing too simulating happened to Ron until the near-death experience of his Father with Nagini, which hit Sam's psyche like a ram and left him teetering for quite a while.
So that the next time he woke up, the fight in the DOM had already begun.
He didn't know why but the memories of the DOM were unusually clear and sharp, it was as if all this time he was watching 720p and now suddenly he was gifted with 8k...
Sam watched through Ron's perspective as all of them ran and fought and got injured by the Death Eaters before a stray spell hit Ron and made him go a bit wonky...
The images were a lot blurry after that and the next clear memory was of him stupidly summoning a brain with tentacles towards him.
This memory was also the last one as the moment the brain wrapped around him, the roll of films ended and everything stopped.
Sam was only a little disappointed as he mostly felt relieved that the memories were finally over and that maybe he would finally get to leave this place...
But of course, that didn't happen...
Instead of him getting out of the void, the most loathful thing happened... the memories restarted. They began jumping in front of him once again and that too from the very beginning.
'Argh! Fuck! Let me go! I don't want to see them anymore' his soundless screams echoed in the void but it was fruitless, as the memories didn't care about him.
He thrashed, he screamed, he tried to close his mind, but nothing worked, the films went on regardless...
After the second time came a third time, then a fourth and then a fifth...
He didn't know how many iterations he had passed through... maybe ten, or maybe a hundred...
All he knew was that the memories of Ron were ever so slowly infiltrating his mind and with every iteration, they began to get clearer and more cemented.
All the holes were slowly being filled, and he began resonating with Ron's emotions more and more until at last... they became his own.
[ASSIMILATING...]
[ASSIMILATION COMPLETE]
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