Ron voiced his strong agreement. "Listen to me, Harry—speaking as someone who's been bullied for eleven years straight—Vaughn is definitely using you as target practice for his magic. Him helping people on his own? Ha! That's hilarious!"
Then he laughed loudly—twice—before one of his big front teeth actually fell out…
Vaughn, who happened to be walking by, calmly put away his wand as if nothing had happened.
Ron had no choice but to run to the hospital wing and chug a large glass of potion to regrow his missing tooth.
Hermione, however, had a different take. She looked seriously at Harry and asked, "How do you know that thought… was really your own?"
It sounded like one of those pointless rhetorical questions—but somehow, it made too much sense…
Harry clutched his head, spiraling into a mix of fear over Dark Magic and philosophical introspection.
After thinking it over the entire day, that night he still went obediently to the Room of Requirement—his face full of grim determination—ready to let Vaughn use Legilimency on him again.
Compared to his own almost non-existent progress in Occlumency, Vaughn's growth in Legilimency was, in Harry's eyes, nothing short of astounding.
It left Harry feeling a little disheartened.
By the second week of November, Harry came once again to the Room of Requirement. This time, his head hung low as he asked Vaughn, "Am I just… really stupid?"
Vaughn, who was thoroughly enjoying the joy of learning magic, replied casually, "Why do you say that?"
Harry sighed, but after opening and closing his mouth a few times, he ended up saying nothing. Instead, he lay flat on the carpet like a salted fish, sighing, "Go on. Let's just get it over with."
Vaughn: "…"
Only then did he realize something was off. It looked like he'd broken the Chosen One. The 'target' had completely given up resisting—and that just wouldn't do.
After all, with Legilimency, the more resistance the target put up, the more effective the training would be!
Frowning, Vaughn flipped through his book for a while before finally coming up with a solution.
"Harry, if you cooperate with me tonight, I'll cast a Pleasant Dream Charm for you after the session. Sound good?"
Harry, still in salted-fish mode, replied with a blank face: "What's the point?"
Vaughn smiled temptingly. "It'll let you have a good dream. In the dream, anything you want can come true. Like… holding hands with a certain girl…"
Harry shot upright like a spring, face instantly flushed. "I-I told you, that wasn't what I meant! It was just… a dream… y'know… maybe…"
But as he saw the half-smiling, teasing expression on Vaughn's face, Harry's voice gradually faded. A moment later, he asked in a tiny whisper, "It'll really be a good dream?"
Vaughn nodded.
Harry muttered, "Well… I guess it's not so bad. At least with a good dream, I might actually get a decent night's sleep, right?"
The next day, Vaughn happily watched a new dream unfold within Harry's memory.
Just like before, it was dreamy and hazy, tinged with a soft pink glow. A small boy walked side-by-side with a girl half a head taller than him.
It looked… absolutely perfect.
Within the memory, Harry's consciousness was struggling with all its might, trying to force Vaughn out. But it was no use—Vaughn's skill with Legilimency had only grown sharper. For Harry, it was getting harder and harder to push him out like he had during their early sessions.
After another long day of training—and yet another failed attempt at resistance—Harry could only look at Vaughn pleadingly and remind him once more, "You promised. You're not allowed to tell anyone about my dreams."
As for everything else, he honestly didn't care much. After all, during his years at the Dursleys', most of his memories were of the cupboard under the stairs. The rest… were all Hogwarts.
"You have my word," Vaughn said, smiling. "My lips are sealed."
Only after receiving Vaughn's promise did Harry finally feel at ease enough to return and rest. Left alone in the Room of Requirement, Vaughn pressed the tip of his wand to his temple and slowly drew out a silvery strand.
It was a memory—everything he had seen inside Harry's mind during Legilimency.
Humming a cheerful little tune, Vaughn placed the silver thread into a small empty vial, sealed it tightly, and carried it to the Headmaster's office on the eighth floor.
"Hey, Albus—Harry's freshly baked romance, want to take a look?"
"Don't make it sound like we're spying on him… Oh—how touching. The boy's already experiencing his first taste of love."
Dumbledore wiped the corner of his eye sentimentally as the memory world materialized in the Pensieve.
But dreams, especially sweet ones, are always short-lived. The pink-tinged scenes quickly flickered past, followed by fragments of darkness—repressed, heavy memories of a helpless boy living ten long years on Privet Drive. They sped by like scenery rushing past a train window.
After a long silence, Dumbledore sighed. "There's so little joy in his life…"
"Yes. Aside from Hogwarts, the moments of happiness are countable on one hand. These are all the key emotional points I've compiled over the past few days," Vaughn replied.
With a wave of his hand—his skill with the Pensieve clearly improving—wisps of memory-laced smoke rose and circled them, then stretched upward into the air.
There were so many that it looked like a wall of Muggle surveillance screens.
From this perspective, it became clear: in Harry's memory, the gloomy, negative fragments vastly outnumbered the light. The very first bright moment in his life… was the day Hagrid brought him his Hogwarts letter.
Back when he read the original books in his past life, Vaughn remembered Harry's childhood being glossed over—just a few fairy-tale-like paragraphs. But those sweetened words couldn't truly capture what it meant for a child to be completely rejected and despised by their family.
Watching Harry as a small boy, dressed in worn-out hand-me-downs, living in a cupboard under the stairs…
Vaughn sneered slightly. "You should count yourself lucky, Albus. It's a miracle Harry didn't turn into another Tom."
"Please forgive an old man's fear and indecision," Dumbledore sighed. "Lily—Harry's mother—left behind a protective enchantment bound by blood. It required him to live with her blood relatives to remain effective. I also feared that growing up in the magical world, constantly surrounded by praise and worship, would make him addicted to false glory…"
Vaughn made no comment. After all, no one could predict what would have happened differently.
He wasn't here to argue on Harry's behalf. Looking at the neatly organized memory timeline he'd compiled, Vaughn said, "So far, I've found no sign that Harry's memories have been tampered with. It seems Tom really hasn't noticed the connection between them yet."
"Don't jump to conclusions too quickly, Vaughn," Dumbledore warned. "Tom is a master of memory magic. His specialty used to be slipping into people's minds, planting seeds of malice deep within their memories, disguised as resentment or anger at life or others.
He would let that darkness fester, linking and magnifying it… until their sanity collapsed. Those poor souls never even realized they had been warped and manipulated."
Vaughn listened carefully. He was never arrogant. He knew Dumbledore had far more experience, and that his own Legilimency was still in its early stages.
"Got it. I'll keep paying close attention."
Harry could continue being his magical practice dummy. Now that was good news.