Hogwarts: From Little Wizard to White Lord

Then he chanted the spell:

"Recover as before!"

With his magic power now close to that of an adult wizard, the repair spell was enough to cover the entire battlefield, and soon, everything seemed to be played in reverse.

The crooked and collapsed houses stood upright again, and the countless fragments of the blown-out doors rolled back and reassembled...

All traces were smoothed and restored by the power of the spell, so when the Muggles with flashlights came to this area a few minutes later.

All they saw was a small building standing alone under the night sky, peaceful and quiet, as usual.

……

"Do you want to call the police?"

"Why, are you still counting on those idiots from Scotland Yard? Maybe some kids are secretly setting off fireworks again. Go away, go back to bed."

The Muggles outside gradually dispersed.

Vaughan lowered a corner of the curtain and waved his wand towards the fireplace. A flame started to burn, providing a faint light.

Facing the fireplace, Crouch sat stiffly on the sofa, and Vaughan sat opposite him.

Looking at his cold expression, Vaughan smiled: "Hello again, Mr. Crouch."

Crouch twitched a cheek muscle, his eyes fixed on Vaughan, his mouth tight.

"I know exactly how you feel right now—you're sitting at home, peacefully, and suddenly someone comes up and reveals the secret you've been hiding for years. You're furious and terrified, and you rush into action only to find you're no match for that person. You must be filled with frustration and fear..."

Vaughn shook his head. “But like I said, why don’t you try to communicate with me?”

Crouch's eyes, reflecting a faint light and fire, were stained deep and dark by the darkness. After a moment of silence, he closed his eyes and said in a hoarse voice, "There's nothing to say. Don't try to threaten me with my secret!"

"Huh? When did I ever say I wanted to coerce you?"

Crouch was unmoved.

Then, he heard Vaughn chuckle across from him: "I just want to cooperate with you, Mr. Crouch. Do you want your son back?"

Barty Crouch doesn't know if he's getting old, as he's been having frequent dreams over the past few years.

There was nothing magnificent or mysterious about the dream, it was just dim and filled with warm sunshine, as if it were long forgotten memories.

In that nostalgic dream, his life was peaceful and his family still lived in their ancestral home, which had a huge garden that connected to the nearby mountains.

There was laughter in the garden every day. His son ran in the mountain forest with swaying tree shadows. His wife and he sat in the flowerbed full of forget-me-nots, watching with a smile. Next to them was a sharp, shimmering voice that suddenly no longer annoyed him.

Then wake up...

Many nights, he touched the wet and cold pillow, recalling his dreams, and the coldness and pain of reality hurt his heart even more.

Of course he regretted that he had been obsessed with power, buried himself in work, and neglected his son's education.

He also hated Voldemort for bewitching his son.

But as time went on, he realized that regret, anger, and resentment could not solve what had happened. The reality was that his wife was dead and his son had become a loyal Death Eater.

The child who used to call him dad with a smile, run in the woods, and curl up in his arms and cry after falling down has turned into a villain, a murderer, a madman who enjoys torturing others!

As he thought about it, Crouch felt as if his heart was being gripped by an invisible hand.

He didn't want to show his pain, didn't want others to see his weakness, but the grief was too intense. It had been pent up in his heart for the past few years. He had no one to talk to, and he didn't even dare to show any abnormality.

Vaughn had broken the spell at some point.

He didn't care. He hunched over and tried to hold back his tears, which began to roll down his cheeks.

His hoarse voice trembled: "My son died a long time ago..."

It was not the physical death that died, but the kind and smiling child in his memory.

Across from him, Vaughn looked at him gently. "What if I tell him I can get him back? Maybe you don't know, but my memory magic skills are actually quite good."

As he spoke, he snapped his fingers.

Crouch subconsciously looked at Vaughan, and then he was attracted by the star-like eyes on the handsome face of the child in front of him. When he came to his senses again, he was already standing in an unfamiliar place.

Before my eyes was a huge, magnificent hall, at least dozens of feet high. Light coming from nowhere illuminated the hall, and I could see that its walls were inlaid with densely packed shelves, extending all the way to the vaulted dome.

The shelves were again filled with books, and several spiral staircases moved up and down automatically. Vaughn was standing on one of them, pulling out a book.

"here it is……"

"Welcome, this is my memory archive."

Vaughn, flipping through the book in his hand, smiled at Crouch, then waved his hand, and the book in his hand immediately disappeared.

The next moment, Crouch felt his hand sink, and the book fell into his arms.

Crouch saw that the cover of the book was himself. He opened it and found that every page recorded the scene of Vaughn meeting him. There was him sitting in the Wizengamot, his battle with Vaughn, and also... him sitting on the sofa like a puppet, looking into Vaughn's eyes.

He suddenly realized: "Is this your memory of me?"

He looked at the countless bookshelves around him and the countless books: "They..."

Vaughn had come up to him at some point, and together they looked up at the surroundings. He said with emotion, "Yes, the Memory Archives. As the name suggests, the books on these walls are all my memories, from my childhood until now."

As he said this, he looked at Crouch and asked with a smile: "Are you wondering why I arranged it like this?"

Before Crouch, still in shock, could respond, Vaughn spoke up, "As my mastery of memory magic deepens, I increasingly feel that human memory mechanisms are too abstract and inefficient. Of course, it's also possible that natural evolution can only achieve that level. After all, nature is always imperfect..."

"So I created this huge archive, reorganizing and planning my memories, abandoning the original mechanisms and imitating the computers of libraries and Muggles to classify them, create catalogs, and search by keywords..."

Crouch listened intently.

This was a direction he had never thought about before - the combination of magic and Muggle knowledge.

After listening for a while, he suddenly asked, "You want to use memory magic to reshape my son's personality by changing his memory?"

He sighed and shook his head. "It's useless. I also know some memory magic and consulted Dumbledore a few years ago. Barty Jr. has been completely corrupted by the Dark Arts. Cruelty and violence have penetrated his soul."

"I've tried memory modification, but it's useless. The result is always the same because of his evil instincts. The modified memories will always be distorted and corrupted again, unless they are completely erased, but that will cause serious damage to his mind!"

As a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Magic, Crouch had many channels to access cutting-edge magic.

In order to redeem his son, he had considered many methods over the years, including memory magic, but they were ultimately proven to be unfeasible.

He was a little disappointed. He had originally had some hope after seeing Vaughn's magical prowess and novel ideas.

Vaughn didn't care about Crouch's disappointment. Instead, he was more interested in what he said, that he had tried memory magic but was ultimately twisted and corrupted by "evil".

In Vaughan's view, this is a very interesting phenomenon, and it is also a problem he encountered when studying magic - why can't the modification of memory have a long-term and continuous impact?

They will eventually be discovered by the person's own consciousness, and then corrected or forgotten (forgetting is actually a blurring process). This was the problem he discovered when he was experimenting on Harry a month ago.

It's as if there's an original backup of a person's memory somewhere, a core database, which can only be completely destroyed by using methods like the Forgetfulness Spell to clear all data (memories).

But as Crouch says, erasing memories can cause irreversible damage.

Vaughn hasn't found the reason yet, but he suspects it's related to the soul and personality. Many problems on the spiritual level can ultimately be attributed to these two.

His method actually does not require considering this problem.

Facing Crouch's gloomy expression due to disappointment, Vaughan snapped his fingers again, and the magnificent memory archive collapsed like a sand castle with this snap.

Crouch was stunned.

Changes at the spiritual level are all meaningful. Everything before his eyes means that Vaughn is destroying his own memory.

"You're crazy..."

As soon as he said that, Crouch saw that Vaughan's body suddenly turned into a gray human-shaped mist.

As the Memory Archives collapsed, the humanoid fog also disintegrated. When everything was engulfed by darkness, the fog completely disintegrated into shapeless mist and dissipated.

At the same time, new fog spread out from the depths of the boundless darkness, wriggling and combining, and a brand new human-shaped fog ball was being assembled.

At the same time, the outline of the Memory Archives was once again outlined in the dark void. The foundation stone, floor, walls... the magnificent building rose from the ground before his eyes at an extremely fast speed.

Perhaps it was only more than ten seconds before Crouch found himself standing in the hall again, surrounded by towering walls still piled with books.

He watched it all in disbelief, the destruction and rebirth were beyond his understanding of memory magic.

He heard Vaughn, who had recovered from the humanoid fog, say in a cheerful tone:

"That's right, Mr. Crouch. I haven't been able to solve the problem of dark magic corrupting memory and mind yet. But if I put on a set of clothes and destroyed them once corruption occurred, could I circumvent this problem?"

"This is the 'Personality Suit Alpha 0.3 Version' I developed!"

Chapter 80 Snape: Am I the only one who is stupid?

Harry was a good experiment.

He has a naive character. When he thinks someone is trustworthy, he will cooperate as long as you say you are doing him good.

On the other hand, he lacks sufficient self-control. Even though he knows that there will be punishment for making mistakes, he cannot help but make mistakes. By constantly violating the rules, he provides a large amount of experimental data.

Over the past month, with Harry's help, Vaughan has gradually refined his original idea.

And the automatic response personality will be promoted into a real personality armor - a virtual personality with real thoughts, memories and behavior patterns, although it is only an Alpha version.

After listening to Vaughn's explanation of the original intention and principles behind developing the personality armor, Crouch had a strange expression on his face.

"So, I was talking to a fake personality?"

"No, only after I invite you into my inner world. Isn't that amazing? By the way, the one you're talking to now is also a virtual personality, but don't worry, 'I'm' still in the experimental stage. The template is based on me, and its thoughts and behaviors are exactly the same as mine."

Crouch: “…”

He suddenly had a lot to say, but didn't know how to say it.

After a moment, he asked curiously, "Then where is your true personality?"

Vaughan smiled but said nothing.

Crouch understood that the other party pulled him into the spiritual world and faced him with a virtual personality in order to hide his real personality and prevent him from memorizing magic and causing trouble here.

It is naturally impossible to reveal where the true personality is hidden.

Crouch sighed: "Let me out, I want to talk to the real you."

"no problem!"

Another snap of the fingers, Crouch felt dizzy, and when he opened his eyes again, he was back in the living room.

The frequent changes of scenes made Crouch a little confused about what was real and what was unreal. He subconsciously grabbed the armrest of the sofa. The rough fabric with body temperature brought him a sense of comfort.