Everything I Do, I Do It For You

Chapter 51: Andrew’s Mind

Dumbledore rose from his chair slowly, a look of astonishment on his face. He pushed his spectacles further up his nose, as if they would give him a better view of the wizard he thought to be dead, floating before him.

“How? Where?” was all the Headmaster managed to say in a shaky voice. He was only now feeling every one of his one hundred and fifty plus years.

“He was the Head Doctor at the facility, Calan Park, where Miss Granger was being held,” Kingsley replied with a slight smile on his face.

“Although he has no recollection of whom or what he is,” the Auror continued. “He actually thought his name was Andrew Lopes.” A puzzled look crossed the bald wizard’s face as he peered intently at Andrew.

“I had to Stupefy him, as he wasn’t listening to reason, and then I brought him back here to Hogwarts.” Kingsley turned his head once more to face Dumbledore.

“Remus and Mundungus are still at the hospital. They are taking down some really complex Dark wards and spells, and I told them not to return until they were done.”

Dumbledore was still staring at Andrew as if he would rouse from his enchanted sleep and explain all to him. The Headmaster shook his head slightly as if awakening from a spell.

How could someone he had thought to be dead all these years make a sudden appearance now of all times? Was it just the fact that everyone, including himself, had thought Andrew to be deceased and left it at that as the war efforts escalated? Why didn’t Andrew remember anything about his past and what did Calan Park have to do with all of this?

"I believe,” Dumbledore started, talking more to himself than to the wizard who was standing in the room with him, “that all of our questions shall be answered shortly.” Dumbledore's eyes gleamed and Kingsley knew that he had a plan of attack.

He reached into his robes and withdrew his wand with one gnarled hand. He held it outstretched in his hand for a couple of seconds, pointed at Andrew as if deliberating what must be done before countering the spells.

“Finite Incantatem,” the Headmaster said in a voice full of power.

As the spells that were placed on Andrew by Kingsley ceased to be, he came to and looked around in shock. He was momentarily speechless as he looked around the unfamiliar room he was currently in and took in all the weird looking gadgets that adorned the space around him.

“I am dreaming,” he stated, as if he would awaken from this outlandish delusion at any second.

“I can assure you that you are most certainly not,” Dumbledore said with a smile on his face.

Andrew turned to look at the old man standing before him.

“Lemon drop?” the Headmaster asked Andrew as he pointed his hand to the bowl of sweets on his desk.

Andrew shook his head slowly from side to side; his mouth was open and his eyes were bulging and threatening to come out of their sockets. He noticed that he was not alone in this hellish nightmare. His hallucination spoke once more.

“No? Well, too bad; they are rather addictive,” Dumbledore said with a hint of playful disappointment in his voice.

“Who are you and what do you want with me?” Andrew asked, finally finding his voice and not feeling bashful about speaking his concerns out loud. Inwardly he was shaking like a leaf; however, he was careful not to display this to the man standing before him.

Kingsley cleared his throat and Andrew quickly turned his head towards the disturbance to see the bald, black man whom he had seen in his hospital, standing to the left of him.

“You,” Andrew said in an accusatory voice his eyes narrowing to two little slits. “You brought me here. Why?” He placed his hands on his hips as he shook with fury. Inwardly he prayed that they weren’t some sort of cult; the elderly gentleman could surely pass as their leader if this were the case.

“Mr Poles,” Dumbledore said in a firm voice.

Andrew turned from the black man he was facing to look once more at the elderly man in the funny looking purple dress.

“Why do you people insist on calling me that?” Andrew asked as he flung his hands up in the air.

“It is your name,” Dumbledore said as he raised both his eyebrows.

“No, my name is Andrew Lopes and I’m the Head Psychiatrist at the facility known as Calan Park,” Andrew came back with. “The people that I work with have probably gone to the police already, when they discovered my absence as I am a very important person in my field,” he stated as he puffed out his chest moving his hands back to his hips.

“So if you just let me go, I can forget all about this… this mistaken identity and we can all continue living our own separate lives.” Andrew emphasised the word separate and prayed that they would listen to him.

“I’m afraid that that is out of the question,” Dumbledore said as he took a step closer to Andrew staring into his eyes.

Andrew lost what was left of his bravado as he started backing up until he felt something solid hit his back. He had nowhere to go.

Dumbledore raised his wand and his lips barely moved as he whispered, “Legilimens.”

Andrew felt a strange feeling come over him and then blissful nothingness.

Dumbledore saw the images floating from Andrew’s mind into his own. He could immediately tell that they had been imprinted there by someone who was very knowledgeable in the Dark Arts, so he ignored them and pushed forward. He was looking for something, though what, he wasn’t quite sure; he knew he would recognize it as soon as he found it.

He stopped abruptly when he came to a wall of solid iron.

Stopping and tilting his head to the side, Dumbledore was wondered what to make of this solid object in the doctor’s mind. Albus had been in thousands of minds before, some invited and some not, but he knew each mind was a very different thing.

The elderly wizard also knew when someone was hiding something, intentionally or not, and there was not one mind that he hadn’t been able to coax its secrets from eventually.

He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating on making an opening. Upon opening his eyes, he saw a break in the wall just large enough for him to squeeze his body through. Once he was past the wall, he sat down on the edge of a nearby boulder, closing his eyes and trying to catch his breath. He knew that he wasn’t really out of breath, however; the mind could be a powerful entity not to be trifled with and if it told him he was out of breath, he thought it best to obey without question.

He raised his eyes to look out at the space before him and what he saw made his breath hitch in his throat. He had to catch himself from falling off the rock he was sitting on.

Hundreds upon hundreds of chests littered the landscape. They were all wrapped up with chains which where held in place with heavy locks.

Albus sighed to himself, at this rate he would be inside Andrew’s mind all night.

He pushed himself up of the rock and approached the first chest. He figured he’d better start with the simplest spell and work his way up to the more difficult ones in his arsenal.

Raising his wand, he said, ” Alohomora,” and watched as not only the lock that he was pointing his wand at opened, but every single one of the locks clanked open with an almost deafening click.

He raised both his eyebrows and looked around in approval; this was easier than he thought. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was ejected from Andrew’s mind and sent whirling back into his own. He stumbled as he regained control of his own limbs and it took him a few seconds to realise what had happened.

Dumbledore took a deep lung full of air as he watched Andrew recover from his psyche being invaded.

“Headmaster,” Andrew said, the disbelief only now registering in his voice. “What am I doing in your office?”

***

Cornelius was almost finished with the harnessing potion, all that he needed now was the blood of one Miss Hermione Granger to make the potion complete. After that the potion needed to simmer on a low flame for eleven more days until complete. He was looking forward to that particular stage because it was when he could truly have fun with Miss Granger.

He selected a golden dagger from one of his drawers and ran his thumb sideways across the blade. It was sharp, which was perfect for the task he was about to perform.

***

“I thought you could tell me,” Albus answered, the look on his face mirroring the same serious look that Andrew was showing.

Andrew scowled for a while; he was trying to remember why he was here in the Headmaster’s office of all places. He tried to grasp onto a memory only to have it slip from his clutches.

“I really don’t know,” Andrew replied still scowling. “The last thing that I remember was that I was in…” He suddenly doubled over as a look of immense pain crossed his face. He dropped to the ground and started to convulse.

“Go get Healer Jensen,” Dumbledore half-yelled as he crossed the floor of his office and knelt beside his former student.

Kingsley rushed over to the fireplace and grabbed some Floo powder. Tossing it into the heath, he bent over and stuck his head into the space between the broad supporting stones that held the fireplace in place.

“Healer,” he yelled into the quiet infirmary not knowing her first name. “Come quickly, it’s an emergency,” he finished when he saw the Healer come rushing out of her office.

Standing back up, he stepped to the side to allow her to pass. As she rushed into the room looking flustered, her gaze took in the Headmaster kneeling over a man who was convulsing wildly.

“If you’ll just move out of the way, Albus, so I can take a look at him,” she said in a concrete voice.

The Headmaster rose, his face was grim as he allowed the Healer to determine what was wrong with Andrew.

Healer Jensen withdrew her wand and waved it a couple of times over Andrew’s convulsing form. She muttered something under her breathe and tutted a couple of times before turning to the Headmaster.

“I’ll have to get him to the infirmary,” she stated as she cast the Mobilicorpus spell on him, once more levitating his body towards the fireplace.

As both Healer and patient passed through the green flames into the hospital wing, Kingsley stopped Dumbledore before he followed them.

“What happened in there?” Kingsley asked; his voice was firm and his face was set in a scowl of concern.

The Headmaster looked down at Kingsley’s restraining hand which was holding him back. He wore a disturbing look on his face which made the Auror drop his hand immediately.

Both wizards followed the Healer through the Floo in silence. They saw Andrew was on a bed and the Healer was frantically moving her wand over him in an effort to save his life.

“How does it look?” Dumbledore asked with a frown.

“It doesn’t look good, Albus,” Healer Jensen commented, whilst still waving her wand in the air above Andrew.

“Is there anything I can do?” the Headmaster asked the Healer.

“If you could cast a stabilising charm over him then I can run a couple more diagnostic charms,” the Healer responded. She sounded composed, as her days in St Mungo’s came back with practised ease.

Dumbledore cast the stabilising charm with a flick of his wand. Andrew went still, his breathing was quite laboured, but he was not thrashing around anymore.

“Kingsley, go back to my office and retrieve my Pensieve,” the aged wizard said in a worried tone.

The Auror didn’t say a word as he went back to the fireplace and disappeared, reappearing a minute later with the Headmaster Pensieve.

“Place it here,” Dumbledore said as he motioned to the bedside table next to the bed currently occupied by Andrew’s shaking form.

The Auror obeyed the Headmaster’s request and then he stepped back to watch what the Headmaster was going to do with his Pensieve.

Albus still had his wand out and as he pointed it to Andrew’s temple, he muttered something under his breath that Kingsley couldn’t quite make out.

As the silvery strands started to come from the side of Andrew’s head, Kingsley gave an audibly gasp. Dumbledore was too intent on extracting Andrew’s memories to notice Kingsley’s outburst.

When Albus had finished taking out all of Andrew’s memories, he placed his wand back into his robes and looked overwhelmed. He pushed his half-moon spectacles further up his nose as he sighed wearily.

Picking up the Pensieve, he turned to the Healer.

“He is in a coma now, Albus,” Healer Jensen said.

“Let me know if he improves,” the Headmaster responded as he made his way back over to the fireplace. “I shall be in my office and shall return these,” here he looked poignantly at the stone bowl in his hands, “when I have finished viewing them.”

The Healer nodded her head and went about tucking Andrew’s prone form into the clean white sheets of the hospital’s bed.

Albus left the room via the fireplace Pensieve in hand.

Kingsley left the infirmary after watching the Healer tuck Andrew into the bed. He hadn’t been close friends with Andrew Poles; however, he felt a sort of kinship with the wizard who had lost so much during the first war against Voldemort.

Kingsley needed some time to think about the events that had unfolded within the space of a couple of hours. He thought now was a perfect time for an evening stroll around the lake as it had always seemed to clear his head.

As the Auror made his way outside, he was so immersed in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the sprinting figure of one, Severus Snape, running blindly like a madman through the corridors of Hogwarts, making his way up to the Headmaster’s office.

***

A/N: Andrew Poles is actually Andrew Lopes rearranged. Just thought you would want to know. If you have already figured that part out, kudos to you.

Next chapter we shall see how Andrew Poles became Andrew Lopes, more about Hermione and that dreaded Minister Fudge and we shall find out why Severus is rushing to the Headmaster’s office. So stick around for that.

Thank you to my wonderful beta, LariLee, without whom you wouldn’t be enjoying my story as much.

Disclaimer: We are all aware that I am not J.K. Therefore I am not making any money from this story, just the recognition of you, my wonderfully readers and reviewers. THANKS!