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"So. We figured out the wording of Confundus, and I myself think that it had about the same meaning. Now let's think about who could have done this? Any thoughts?"

"Headmaster ..."

"No."

"Why?"

"Of course, I hate Dumbledore, but one thing I can say with certainty is that he will not expose the student to guaranteed death. But even if he substitutes, he will kill himself with his own self-digging. He can be cunning, intrigue, implement some of his plans, but he will not substitute for death. He hates death, believe me."

"Then ... Who then? Snape? He could. Also, a friend of Lucius, sort of. He could well "help" me to commit suicide, but it didn't work out."

"Or send you to the hospital wing with severe injuries," Walburga continued for me, thinking up a possible course of events on the go. "They couldn't help you there, he would assist it. They would send you to Mungo, and there are a couple of bribes and Imperiuses, and now in an unknown place, you receive Avada from a man hired by Malfoy."

"Where is this world heading?!" I exclaimed, shaking my hands.

"Where it was, there it stayed," Lady Walburga shrugged.

"Sorry, but can I ask you a question?"

Walburga just nodded.

"How to not allow the imposition of such Confundus?"

"By studying Occlumency even better. To the extent that you can control your own impulses. At this level, you can simply feel any Confundus but cope ... Everything here will depend on your will. But in any case, Confundus will not force you to do something that is completely unnatural for you and that you have never even thought about."

"Yeah, but a man in his thoughts and fantasies does a lot."

"Exactly," Walburga nodded. "But the greater the unnaturalness of the action, the stronger Confundus should be. You, as I understand it, with great difficulty drove away from yourself the thoughts of personal reprisal against the basilisk?"

"Not really. I simply forbade myself to even think about it. It's too dangerous. And after this adventure, I forbade myself to think about everything connected with it in general."

"Nice move," Walburga nodded approvingly from the portrait. "Thus, superficial Legilimency will not allow anybody to see anything because you are not thinking of something suspicious."

"And another question. Do you understand that I had to destroy Tom Riddle's diary?"

"Yes," Walburga answered without any emotion.

"I have suspicions that it was a Horcrux."

"How do you know about such magic?" the gaze of Walburga became so stern that a young man of my age would go to punish himself as if he were a house-elf.

"I'm not ready to lay out some secrets yet."

"Secrets ..." Walburga still gloomily looked somewhere in the distance. "Forget about the existence of this magic, about the word itself, the name, and do not look for information on it. Horcrux - the path to nothingness. That's all, you can go."

I did not dare to argue with a gloomy and pensive woman. Therefore I promptly got myself together and left since my clothes are quite casual. The door has not yet closed behind me when I heard:

"Ugh, you son of a bitch! Dementor's miscarriage!" the voice of Walburga abruptly died down as soon as the door was closed. I wonder if this is Tom or me? Let's hope it's Tom...and Snape...and Lucius.

Glancing at the already blackening sunset sky and breathing in the evening summer air, I walked briskly towards the nearest bus stop suitable for me. Now I can go home.

*****

For three days of vacation, I did absolutely nothing but physical training and study of occlumency. All the same thought control, but among other things, I decided to start developing my own concept of protecting consciousness. Although, as it seems to me, protection will be only a by-product of this very consciousness's structuring. Of course, I will not apply anything new until I finish this very development, but I have already sketched some basis, the foundation of this system, on paper.

The idea is quite simple and commonplace - visualization. But not the one about "libraries" and so on, but a somewhat different kind. Representation of the totality of oneself, one's I, soul, and body as a kind of structure. Let's take a cube, for example. This cube will consist of smaller cubes, symbolizing, for example, consciousness, subconsciousness, and so on. They, in turn, will consist of others, even smaller ones, and so on. A similar structure was pushed to me by various techniques from a past life. I don't know how real and effective they were, but the Internet was swarming with these.

Such a system will have a special feature. A separate block-cube, the role of which is only in one - to take on an external signal in the form of some kind of suggestion and send it to other isolated blocks. Simply put, it is an attempt to deceive Confundus by imposing it on something that actually does not exist. Well, or at least signal about it. A similar block can be attempted to be implemented for the Legilimency, but it is not clear about Imperio. However, this is a matter of the future, but before starting the studies, I will need to at least complete the development on paper.

Sword training brought new surprises, although I still don't know if it's good or bad. As soon as I summoned my sword, some of its changes immediately caught my eye. The handle, which was smooth before, became rougher, and in appearance, it acquired an almost imperceptible fine-flaked structure. The gold elements took on an almost imperceptible greenish tint, as did the black blade. Now, in the sun, it did not reflect white sunlight but quite a bit greenish. However, that's not all.

The blade began to corrode the surface that it touches, and the sword itself felt somehow cold and heavy. Hard to explain.

Having considered all the possible reasons for such changes, I came to a simple and logical conclusion - the basilisk is to blame. No, seriously. When I gutted the demon from the grimoire, the sword tried to swallow its soul and even devoured it, but the Old Man took the "intruder." It is possible that the sword managed to absorb the soul of the basilisk, but ... I feel the sword, the Weapon of the Spirit, as a part of myself. You can say - part of my soul. So - I don't feel any basilisks and stuff. Perhaps, since the sword is part of me, then I don't feel any changes? Look, when a psycho becomes a psycho, he does not know about it. For him, everything is in order, and he behaves as before, and in his opinion, everything is fine with his psyche.

A logical question immediately appeared in my head - will the sword absorb another soul or not? Perhaps it could only absorb one?

I guessed about such properties of the sword, and therefore I drove away the thoughts of poking it into everything, but the basilisk forced me. Although, on the other hand, there are at least two spells in my head that can kill such a creature, but would I have pulled them without practice? Hardly. This is not Stupefy - everything there is tens and hundreds of times more complicated. Also, it hits well - I would have nailed both Potter and Ginny, and for that, I would not be stroked on the head. The ministry would have found me. They would have figured it out and found me, but they would not have stroked because the corpse of the Hero of England is not a trifle.