The Will of Gil (Gilderoy Lockhart SI)

In that next room, I store Gilderoy's more secret memories and things he generally doesn't want people to know, embarrassing stuff really and nothing of any actual consequence. Still, they are things Gilderoy would not want to get out, as they would ruin his image in the public's view. Of course, I do not include his mastery of obliviation or his obliviating and stealing his stories. After all, this library is supposed to be a decoy for anyone who manages to make it this far inside my mindscape.

But if someone manages to make it this far, someone like Dumbledore, who is probably aware or suspects that Gilderoy Lockhart stole the memories of other wizards for his books, then it would obviously be suspicious that those memories are not included in this. And so, I take it a step further and create another secret room, but this time I do it underneath this one, and you have to physically push a giant marble statue of myself that I put in the middle of the room. But, again, it just felt like this would sell the story more.

This time though, I make sure that the room is pitch black. When I place the memories on the shelves throughout the room, I intersperse them with various memories from the previous rooms, making sure the order is as random as possible. This room is purely for the people that already know about these memories and are looking for them, so basically, Dumbledore, as I know from the books that he is friends with one of the wizards Gilderoy stole a story from, so if he knows and comes looking he will find this and not look any deeper.

I don't want any of this stuff to be found out, but if someone as powerful as Dumbledore comes to find them, then I don't know if I would be able to stave him off, and I don't want someone with that kind of power running around with the knowledge from my past life and the seven books of Harry Potter.

This is my last decoy to stop people from finding my previous life's memories, and if the memories in this room are located, then it is not the end of the world. I have magic now, which means I can do anything, so I can figure out how to create a new identity and change my appearance. It is not as if they have any sort of ID in the magical world or a magical signature or something. I could easily create a new life for myself if needed, but I will try sticking it out with this one for now. After all, I am in a position of power due to my fame, and it would be a shame to give it all up.

With that done, I spent some more time adding the finishing touches to this underground library and neatening it up, making sure that it was detailed enough because when I did my brick test, I discovered that the more complicated the brick was, the more solid it was. So, therefore, I will spend as much time as possible detailing my mindscape to the utmost degree, every day working on it to perfect it and never stopping. Even when I think it is finished, I will continue to add to it.

This whole process did not happen in an instant. It actually took full days. I spent a lot of time just testing the bricks and finding the best one before starting on my mindscape. It is very tiresome work that really taxes the mind. I didn't even check on my captive.

I was so tired from my work, and honestly, I didn't really care about him. I could dimly hear his shouts from where I was working on my mindscape, but I ignored him. I could think about feeding him and his hygiene later. Right now, I have to focus on myself and forging my mind.

The first thing I have to do now is to hide the library and make it even harder to find, which means my first order of business is working on the caves under the lake as well as the lake itself. Starting with the caves, I want to make an absolute maze that makes it nearly impossible to get through to the library. To do that, I just give myself the power of flight and start to zoom all over the underground, burrowing through the rocks and making dozens of different paths and entrances.

It didn't take as long as I would've thought to finish as I made an extensive maze of caves and paths with only one passageway leading to the library, I'm sure there is more that I can do to protect it even more, but this will be sufficient for now, I have to work on other stuff as well.

So now, to work on the outside and improve the appearance, and so I start to alter the terrain, spreading sand along the seafloor and adding corals, reeds, seagrass and a variety of other things to really make it feel like a seabed, and I use these things to cover up the entrances to the maze.

Down with the lake, for now, having at the very least disguised the entrances to the maze somewhat, I turn my gaze towards the sky. I can add more detail later. But, looking up at the clear blue sky and the fluffy white clouds, I can clearly see that there is something undeniably missing: the sun, which is what I am going to create next.

I start by imagining a small glass sphere high up in the sky, which holds a space of around 50 square metres. I make sure to concentrate to the very best of my ability, focusing my all on this creation and imagining the object as the strongest thing to ever exist and thinking of the super dragon balls from Dragon Ball while creating it. My brain begins to ache. Still, I carry on non the less, pushing through to make the most critical thing in my mindscape.

With a mental pop, I let myself go and begin to relax, letting all the tension leave me as I finish making my creation, and when I look up at the sky, I can see an orange crystal ball floating there. Moving closer, I inspect it on the outside and make my best brick and fling it at the ball, only for it to bounce off. Then, concentrating my mind, I create dozens upon dozens of bricks and begin to rapid-fire them at the ball like a machine gun, only for them all to bounce off.

Satisfied, I get rid of the bricks and then teleport inside the crystal ball. Inspecting it from the inside, I can tell it is just as good as on the outside and proceed to the next step of my creation. Concentrating, I form a block of steel inside the crystal ball, and then I concentrate on making an identical steel block right next to it. Getting close to one of them, I put my finger inside it and dug into it, making a groove. Looking towards the other steel block, I can see the same groove in it as well.

Grabbing that steel block, I teleport down to the ground with it, leave it there and then go back up inside the crystal and make another groove on the steel block. Teleporting back down, I see the exact same groove in this steel block, meaning distance is not an issue.

Then I concentrate and begin to form the sun, thinking of the hottest thing in existence as well as Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto. The Captain Commander of the Gotei 13 in Bleach, whose power of flame was so great he could devastate all life, again I feel the same pain, but I just push through it.

Again the strain suddenly releases, and I begin to feel a deep heat on my skin. It is warm and hot but not to the point of being uncomfortable. Looking up, I can see a small sun in the sky, lording above my mindscape. It is a beautiful vibrant yellow that illuminates all of my lands. Quickly looking to the side at the steel block, I can see that it is just the same as it was before, completely unaffected.

Happy with the results, I teleport up into the orange crystal ball at the centre of the sun I just created. Once inside, when I look out, I can see nothing but the scorching flames surrounding the crystal ball. Seeing the unharmed steel block, I vanish it from existence as it had served its purpose. While I did create the crystal ball with the intention for the things outside not to affect the inside, I couldn't trust that it would work, which is why I tested it with the steel blocks.

Now with my secret space inside the sun itself, I release all of my most precious memories, the memories from my past life, to float around the inside of the orange crystal ball as orbs of white light. There is no reason to disguise them as glass balls like the other ones. after all, nobody is going to think to search the inside of the sun.

Satisfied with my work for the day I leave my mindscape, I have taken care of all the urgent problems and fulfilled all the immediate needs. I can take time later to further refine my mindscape. After all, I have done all I can, and all that's needed now is time to further improve it.

Well then, I suppose it is time I check up on Digby. D. Digworth. after all, it has been over two days since I left him in that room. Hmm, the last time I thought about him, I felt unquenchable rage bathed in the fury of a thousand waves, but now I just feel very, very justifiably angry at him and vengeful. I guess working on your mindscape and creating things can be very therapeutic. Who knew.

Standing up, I make my way over to the room where he is held captive, and I open the door.

"AGGGGHH, YOU BASTARD!! I WILL KILL YO-" I slam the door shut when I catch sight of Digby raving around like a lunatic, foaming at the mouth like he has rabies. With the short glance I got at him before I relieved my eyes from the horrific sight, I saw slobber covering the upper half of his body and then a whole host of other stains covering the different parts of his body. Yellow stains, brown stains, orange stains and even green stains, I could not deal with any of that stuff right now, and I am not entering the room with him like that.

Making a U-turn, I head towards my library to look through the Hogwarts books. I know a variety of cleaning charms and spells, but those were primarily appearance-based. Still, even if those charms worked on him, I would never be able to be in that room without thinking of that sight.

So I am going to the library to learn the vanishing spell, Evanesco. It is a transfiguration spell which transfigures the target into nothingness. That is what I need. So instead of just cleaning that stuff, it needs to be destroyed.

Heading into my library, I begin to pilfer through all the textbooks in search of this essential spell, and it takes me quite a while to skim through all of the transfiguration books, going up incrementally by year in order, but eventually, I get to the fifth year textbooks and discover the spell. I know that this is a transfiguration spell, and Gilderoy was never any good at transfigurations, so I have hardly any knowledge about it, but I am willing to learn it. I will not enter that room again without it.

And once I have learned it and cleaned Digby up, and then I can get to the real reason I kept him around. To start learning more about magic, I will need a guinea pig, and Digby just so happened to turn up, and well, needs must.