Mind Trap

Thanks to my reviewers and my beta!

The Library 4/?

The entrance hall of the Library was just as Harry remembered it, the large vault door hanging open invitingly, yet also ominously. Harry nodded politely to the woman... creature at the Information Desk and made his way down the hall way towards the Mortal Realm Section. Coming to a set of closed glass doors, Harry examined them curiously. They looked like contemporary muggle doors. A closer look revealed swirls of iridescence and moving shades of pastels, all flowing in whirlpools and currents that he could almost understand.

“Ahem.” Someone cleared their throat from just behind him and to his right. I startled and alarmed him that someone had gotten that close to him without his noticing, but he hid it well, turning smoothly to look the interloper over. He was black, not the dark skin of an African, but the pitch black of deep caves. His flesh did not seem real, more like tangible darkness, allowing only a vague outline to be seen, no depth indicating shape or gender. Harry's mind only designated the being male because of the deeper modulations of the voice. But the most striking thing of all was the deep midnight blue of his eyes, the colour of the sky at night in between the stars. “Would you be the wizard the Director spoke of?”

Harry snapped back to awareness, realizing he was staring. “That would depend. I believe I am the only wizard here currently, but I have no idea who the Director is.” The other being evaluated Harry while he spoke, apparently satisfied with what he saw.

“The Director is the Neutral Angel sitting at the Information Desk. She controls the Library in its entirety. I am the Librarian-Director of the Mortal Realm Section. As you can see, I am neither human nor mortal. I am what your kind call an Atrum'bra, or Black Shadow in the vernacular. There are only two types of beings in my original Plane: the Atrum'bra and the Crepusculum’bra, or Twilight Shadows. As you probably guessed, I am from the Plane of Shadows. Is there anything I can help you with?” The general head-shaped part tilted inquiringly.

“Could you tell me about the doors, here? And then guide me to the place where I can make subject searches?”

“The doors are both decorative and practical. They are made of pure magic, the essence of reality in its rawest form. They were created by a minor being from the Lower Divine Plane. Anyone who attempts to remove books or copies of books from the Library without the proper authorisation encounters... severe repercussions. If you care to follow me...?” The... creature pushed open the door and gestured to the Library beyond.

Stacks-- miles and miles of stacks stretched further than Harry could see. “ There are over 4000 miles of stacks and more than 1 billion books, scrolls, journals, articles, etc contained in this section. The only practical method of research is the search box.” A long, slender, arm-like limb gestured to an ornate box carved from turquoise sitting upon an alabaster Greco-roman column. A similar column carved of a giant orange sapphire sat nearby, a silver plaque engraved with “Receiving: Stand Clear”. Harry nodded his thanks and the Atrum'bra faded into the shadows, leaving the young wizard alone in the giant library.

Harry immediately went to the search box, requesting all books on Battle Magic. A loud bell sounded, and a note appeared on the receiving pedestal: “1,542,397 items found. Search term too broad. Please specify offensive, defensive, melee, guerilla, traditional, naval, aerial, land, etc.”

“Well damn.”

***

Harry didn't know how long he spent there. Time became irrelevant in the face of the orgy of knowledge the Boy-Who-Lived found himself in. Knowledge was absorbed as quickly as he could get his hands on the books, Dark spells expanding his mind to be able to retain it all in near photographically exact detail. Mountains and valleys of books formed around him, tiny pathways between the piles forming to allow him to walk from his chosen table to the search box. Occasionally Harry would catch sight of the Librarian-Director and a mountain would disappear, but it wasn't often enough to make a dent in the piles.
Eventually, the Receiving pedestal refused to process his requests. “Too many withdrawals. Mortal section categories Anatomy, Ancient and Lost Arts, Anthropology, Astronomy, Battle Magic, Bonding Rituals, Chemistry, Dark Arts, Divinations, Healing, Herpetology, History, Muggle and Wizarding Law, Dead and Modern Languages, Magical Theory, Potions, Propaganda, Prophecies, Quantum Physics, Religion, Temporal Philosophy, Weapons Making, and Weapon Usage exhausted. Go home you deranged cretin. You haven't eaten or slept in eight decades.”

Of course, the end of the note didn't really faze him much. Harry figured he had experienced more time than had passed in his Plane of existence. The research he did in temporal philosophy and his own theories helped him to understand the possibility of it.

**Many thought of time to be similar to a thread, part of the tapestry of the Age, a thread for each person and their perception of time. The muggle part of the tapestry was neat and flat but generally uninteresting. The magical part however was quite different. The use of Time Turners and other devices of a similar nature made the thread of the user move backwards under the tapestry and reappear to create embroideries and knots where ever their perceptions overlapped. It was reasonable and a good allegory, but Harry preferred a more mathematical approach.

Each person's existence is a broken vector in a three dimensional Cartesian plane, with the origin being the moment of their conception, 'x' as their movement through time, 'y' as movement through space, and 'z' as the perception of time. The larger the vector is in terms of 'z', the more time the individual has experienced in comparison to the average experience of the rest of the universe. A muggle with no access or experience with time travel would have no way of percieving 'z' and would therefore exist in a two dimensional plane. The average perception of time would be 'z = 0'. Intersections of vectors would be the meetings of perceptions, where minds are shared, like in Legilimency and Mind Bonding.

But none of that mattered, for Harry had not aged a minute once he stepped inside the Library. He pulled his cloak on and left; the mountains of books the only sign of his presence there. A mysterious smile crossed his face when he gazed once again on the magical doors into the Library. He nodded his head politely to the Director and exited the vault door and back into Diagon Alley of the Mortal Realm.



**A/N: both the tapestry allegory and the mathematical theory are property of the author. Do not steal!