HP: A Magical Journey
chapter-65

A/N: This is the second part of the two-part CLIMAX of the [COLORS ARC].

- [Climax Part 2: Madness, Chaos, and Silence.] -

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Nights at Hogwarts were quiet with comfortable yet eerie silence. Students comfortably slept in their dorms, teachers who were off-duty either went out to Hogsmeade to enjoy some nightlife or stayed in for a quiet day. House-elves performed tasks in the cover of the night. Portraits also went to sleep in their frames, emulating human behavior. Ghosts who were awake and couldn't sleep were few in numbers to bring 'life' to the castle.

In that quiet castle, a boy could be seen dancing in the Hogwarts castle as he moved in the corridors. He was doing nothing but taking a walk in the silent castle, feeling the cool breeze caress his skin.

Today had been another good day in series of good days for him.

Gilderoy Lockhart, the fraud, the person who had tried to wrong him by trying to erase his memories and take his memory, was stripped of his position as the professor of Defense Against Dark Arts.

The official reason was that Gilderoy Lockhart had become sick and was quitting his job because of health reasons.

But he knew better.

Anyway, Gilderoy Lockhart had quit his job, and to soften the blow for his numerous fans, he had announced a sale for the next week, dubbing it the Get-Well-Soon sale week. The Lockhart goods were being sold at never-before-seen prices just so that his fans could show their support in the time of need.

Even in his absence, Gilderoy Lockhart was giving him profits.

A pity that he had to go.

While he was dancing in the corridors, Recon, his trusty map, was floating in front of him, diligently doing its job to show who was present around him.

His walks in the night were a private affair, and he preferred them to remain that way. With no people, elves, ghosts in his sight.

He would occasionally look at the map, changing his direction if he was moving towards someone or they were moving towards him.

It was polite to give people their space. And while they didn't know that he was here, he did know that others were around, so it was only normal to get out of their way so that both he and the other party could enjoy their peaceful night.

When he looked at the map, he found someone ahead in his path. It was a blue dot, meaning that the other party was a student. A rare sight this late in the night.

He was about to follow the usual protocol and avoid them, but the name tag with the blue dot caused him to still in his path.

The map showed that Luna Lovegood was around the corner from him.

This puzzled him greatly. Why was Luna here? She didn't stay up this late. It was past her bedtime; she had told him so.

Worried about his friend, he moved towards the girl. Softly taking steps as he turned around the corner bend and saw her.

She was standing there, at the side of the corner. Looking outside at the bright moon that was illuminating the velvety night sky. She looked like a fairy, admiring natural beauty in a way humans couldn't.

But her appearance caused him to frown.

She was wearing her Hogwarts robe. But there was nothing on her feet, barefoot were her soles.

She looked fine, but that didn't say anything about why she was here so late in the night. So, after some contemplation, he called out.

"Luna."

The younger girl had badgered him to call her by her first name, going as far as not responding to her family name. According to her, it was nice to hear Luna instead of Loony, like everybody had started to call her.

The silvery-blonde swirled her head towards the voice. There she saw him standing there, looking at her with a worried look on his face.

"Quinn," she said. Her feet moved, moving her body towards him.

"What are you doing here, Luna?" Quinn, who saw Luna moving towards him, asked. "It is past your bedtime."

The blonde stopped in front of him and replied with questions of her own.

"What are you doing here? Why aren't you sleeping?"

Quinn's reply was a simple one.

"It is not my bedtime, so I am taking a walk."

To Luna Lovegood, the answer was a fitting one. She got answers to both of her questions.

"So, tell me, young lady. Why are you here and not in your bed, sleeping?" asked Quinn. "And, why aren't you wearing anything on your feet?"

Luna looked down at her feet; her toes moved in nervousness. She spoke softly.

"I was kicked out of the common room, and now I can't enter the common room."

Quinn frowned at the answer.

"What do you mean you were kicked out of the common room?" No person other than the faculty members could kick a student out of the house common room. And he was sure that Flitwick wouldn't kick a student out of the common room this late at night.

"Some seventh-year girls came to my dorm room and stunned me," Luna answered while clutching the ends of her robe. "When I came to be, I only had this robe on me and was in the first-floor girls' lavatory."

Quinn's blood went cold as he heard that.

She narrated her story straightforwardly with no cracks in her voice, but he could see the signs she displayed. She hadn't looked at his face ever since she walked near him. Her hands had been clutching her robe so hard that her hands were white.

"When I went to the common room. I couldn't answer the riddle from the eagle, and no one came in or out of the common room, so I was locked out."

"And, why didn't you go to professor Flitwick or any other professor?" Quinn asked. He successfully hid the anger he was feeling.

"I don't know professor Flitwick's bedtime," she answered. Her face still facing downwards. "What if I woke him up from sleep."

Quinn closed because of the anger he was feeling. His anger rose again because even though Luna's words sounded idiotic, Quinn knew that Luna was scared to even ask for help. She was just saying this to hide the real reason.

"Luna," he spoke to the young girl in front of her. When she didn't look up, he used her hands to cup her cheeks. Lifting her head up to such that she was looking at him. "You don't have to be scared to ask for help. You can go to any professor. Even if it is professor Snape in the middle of the night. You can even knock on the headmaster's door, and it would be fine."

Luna stared at Quinn as he spoke.

"And, you can come to me with any problems you have." He showed a comforting smile and spoke. "You are my friend, and I always help my friends out. So, come to me anytime you want, and I would be waiting for you."

"Really?" asked Luna. Her eyes stared at Quinn as if looking for something.

"Really."

Luna's chin quivered a little. She released her robes from her hands and raised them to hug Quinn. Her thin arms grabbed onto Quinn tightly.

Quinn, who was surprised for a moment, snapped out of it and hugged back. He could feel her silent sobs and gently stroked her back and let her cry it out.

Luna didn't have any friends in Hogwarts. Her quirky personality didn't help her make friends.

She was friends with Ginny Weasley, but the Gryffindor girl was in another house and busy with her new friends. The two couldn't meet as frequently as they did before Hogwarts, leaving Luna alone.

Quinn was Luna's friend, but he had been too busy himself. Spending his time in the Restricted Section of Library, Room of Requirements, or the A.I.D office. He was rarely seen in the Ravenclaw common room.

Luna would usually spend her time in the gardens exploring the greens by her lonesome. But she could only do it so much, and after that, any child would want someone to play with them.

So, when Quinn heard that Luna could come to him anytime and that he was her friend. She broke down.

When she woke up in the bathroom, she was scared and alone. It frightened her when she couldn't figure out the puzzle to go inside her common room. She was sure that she would have to spend the night, out, alone.

Quinn waited for Luna to calm down before he spoke.

"Are you feeling fine?"

The girls in his arms nodded but didn't separate from him.

"Good, now let's get you home," said Quinn. It was too late in the night, and it was time to sleep. Even Quinn was feeling sleepy. "It is late, and we should go sleep."

Luna finally released him from her hug but grabbed the edge of his sleeve as if scared that Quinn would disappear if she let him go.

The two walked in comfortable silence until they reached the common room entrance on the fifth floor.

Quinn looked at the bronze eagle knocker and used it to knock on the door. Immediately the eagle spoke the entry riddle.

"A container without hinges, lock, or a key,

Yet a golden treasure lies inside me.

What am I?"

The answer from Quinn came immediately,

"An egg."

Luna, on the side, finally understood the riddle, and her eyes shone when she heard the answer.

There was no answer from the eagle, but Quinn and Luna knew the answer was correct when the door opened, allowing them entry to the common room.

The two Ravenclaws stepped inside. When the pair reached the stairs to the girls' dormitory. Quinn made Luna face him and looked her into the eye and asked.

"Luna, tell me the names of the girls who stunned you."

Luna's eyes widened before she shook her head, refusing to answer.

"Luna, I can help," Quinn tried to explain. "We will go to professor Flitwick together, and he will punish those girls. It will be fine."

Luna still shook her head. She didn't want to go to the professor. Today terrified her, and she was afraid that if she complained, then the girls would do something terrible again.

"Alright," sighed Quinn. He tried, but Luna didn't speak a single word. "Now go up and sleep. I will be waiting for you here tomorrow morning. We will go to breakfast together, okay?"

Luna showed a sleepy smile and nodded.

"Good, now go sleep. Good night, Luna."

"Good night, Quinn." She gave Quinn one final hug before climbing the stairs to the girls' dormitory.

Quinn waited for a while before all expression drained from his face.

"Sorry, Luna." He apologized. "But, if you don't want to go to the professors, then I would have to take this matter into my own hands."

He already knew the identity of the girls who bullied Luna. He had pulled the knowledge when he looked into the eyes using legilimency.

The thing was that the splash of red was present on Quinn's nape from the second Luna told him about what happened to her. It only deepened in color with time, and Quinn only hid the anger because Luna didn't need anger but comfort from him.

"Maximum suffering," Quinn spoke in the empty common room.

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- (Scene Break) -

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The next few days, Quinn stalked the group of three seventh-year Ravenclaw girls.

From his observations, the three girls were high up in the Ravenclaw social hierarchy. The three were below average on the Ravenclaw exam grading scale, which meant they were above average in the Hogwarts exam grading scale.

Two of them had boyfriends, third had broken up with her's two months ago. Not a useful piece of information. But information nevertheless.

What Quinn did in the few days was to find their daily routine. Find their usual routes, timings, people they sit and stand with. When they were in the common room. Places they went to in their free time.

He found things that would help him track them. This time around, Quinn didn't call in his favors to get some blackmail material because he wasn't looking to blackmail the girls. He was going to hurt them they did to Luna.

Tit-for-Tat was the theme.

When Quinn thought that he had enough information and familiarity with their daily routine, he decided to strike.

On the day he was planning to execute the plan, he went down inside his suitcase and retrieved an object that he would use against them.

Quinn looked at the thing in his hand and smiled,

"Maximum suffering."

He pocketed the thing and moved out. After spending the school day attending classes, he was finally free. So were the three girls.

It was a Friday, and on Fridays, these three girls would go to one of the many secluded in Hogwarts with a bottle of Fire-whiskey and drink the fire-inducing booze, alone away from the eyes of anyone who could get them in trouble.

Quinn chose this moment because the area they drank was secluded, and no one would be there to see Quinn or the girls. He could work without any witnesses, so no danger of him getting into trouble.

The girls arrived in the secluded place full of boulders.

Quinn waited behind an enormous boulder till they were settled down, and he was sure no one else was joining them.

With his eyes on the girls, Quinn's hand went into his robes, and when it came out, he was holding something.

He lifted his hand and pointed at the girls. His face had a savage grin on it.

But then something happened, something clicked in Quinn's mind.

Quinn looked at the object in his raised hand and stared at it.

'...What?' he thought.

In his hand was the thing that he hadn't touched for more than two-and-half years, close to three years. He had not looked at it for the same amount of time.

And, the last time he was near it was before the school year started, but other than that, Quinn had no contact with the object.

So, imagine his surprise when he found the object in his hand that he wasn't willing to touch other than the situation where things were on the level of FUBAR.

This situation was nowhere near the level of FUBAR, but Quinn still had it in his hand.

This told him one thing. Just having the object in his hand eliminated all other possibilities and left one single possibility.

Which was... that something was wrong with him.

Why did he come to this conclusion? It was because Quinn was pointing a wand at the girls. Not his fake wand that he made before his first year. The wand in his hand was the real deal.

The wand in his hand was an Ollivander piece. Made from the wood of an Acacia tree. With a phoenix's feather as the core. Fourteen inches and rigid flexibility.

It was indeed like the calm before the storm.

Quinn stayed still for a moment. In that stillness, a clarity befell upon Quinn. A clarity that felt strange to Quinn because he hadn't felt like this in months. It was like something clogging the back of his head was cleaned, and all motors were running smoothly again.

Instinctively Quinn dove into his mind, and the first memory that popped into his mind was when he dropped unconscious in the second vault. From there on out, Quinn introspected the entire school term, and it finally became clear what he had done.

All the things he did, which he would usually steer clear of. His attitude towards things, slight changes in his personality, and substantially lowered inhibitions.

Time passed as Quinn stood in his hiding spot. It was like a Basilisk had petrified him as three girls he was going to target drank the booze, had a fun time, and left the place.

Finally, Quinn reached the part where he obliviated into forgetting everything about his identity, and now, as he looked at the real wand in his hand, Quinn's heart started to beat quicker.

"What have I done?" Quinn's tone was grave and remorseful. "What was I going to do with those girls."

There was a clear sound of glass shattering in Quinn's mind. The sudden sound startled him, and he turned towards his back. And while there was no one behind him, Quinn's magic moved on its own and froze the rocks behind him.

"Huh?"

He didn't mean to use ice magic to freeze the rocks. It just happened on its own. Then Quinn heard the sound of sizzling behind him, and turning, he saw that half a boulder had been turned into dust.

"W-What?"

Suddenly, Quinn's hands felt hot, and when he looked down, he saw veins of blood magic on his forearm.

At this point, Quinn was experiencing a full-blown panic attack, and with those erratic feelings, the magic around started to become more and more unstable.

More and more of the area froze and melted at the same time. Rocks transfigured and transmuted before everything turned into dust or exploded. Lacerations and deep gashes made from destructive and dark magic appeared on the rocks and boulders around him.

With labored breathing and sweating from all over Quinn's body, he looked around as his vision blurred and his ears buzzed.

"S-St-op," Broken words came out of Quinn's mouth as he clutched his head and attempted to stop his magic from lashing out without his will.

It took a while, but the magic stopped, leaving the horrid destruction around him. But, the trouble wasn't over as Quinn stood up on his feet and immediately ran inside the castle.

He was holding magic, but he was hanging on a thread, and the magic, was pushing against his control, rampaging his body, threatening to break out.

Quinn somehow got to the seventh floor. His entire journey to the seventh floor had been rough as some of his magic had leaked out, leaving patches of magical damage in his path.

'A strong room... a strong room... a strong room.'

Quinn desperately thought about wanting a strong room as he paced up and down to activate the Room of Requirement.

When the door finally appeared, Quinn directly ran into the door, opening it with his body. He stumbled into the Room of Requirements, falling within a few unstable steps.

"Aaaaaaaah!" A scream pierced the room as Quinn finally couldn't stop the bubbling magic inside him, and instantly, the surrounding room shook.

Whips of fire, layers of ice, streaks of lightning, quaking floor, lacerations, and cracks appeared along the walls and floor. The room descended into pandemonium as Quinn's magic wreak chaos in the room while the Room of Requirement fixed the damages continuously.

After an unknown period, Quinn gained some semblance of control. Quinn once again tried to stop his magic, which wasn't following his will and order, but nothing worked. It lashed out without his lead.

Quinn had no control over his rampaging magic. Any effort to direct his magic was met with failure.

The rapid expulsion of magic started to hurt his body as Quinn felt like his veins were on fire. In that desperate time, an idea struck him, and he reached into his mind.

He used the emotional aspect of occlumency to reach out to all his turbulent emotions, and at that moment, he cut all his connections to his emotions.

He disconnected his emotions from his body, and instantly his face went blank.

Next went the emotional connection to his mind, and everything he was feeling become distant and like a buzzing in his mind, annoying but manageable.

Finally, Quinn cut the emotional connection to his magic. His wandless focus ability heavily depended on emotions and his will to perform magic. The lack of magical focus made Quinn's emotions and will crucial to his ability to cast magic.

Now, without a single ounce of emotional connection from Quinn, the magic stopped. The room went silent as Quinn sat on his knees, his hands hanging loosely to his sides.

There was not an expression on his face or a look in his eyes.

He opened his mouth, and words came out in a monotone.

"I screwed up. I need help."

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Blue - S L O T H <-- > A C E D I A

Pink - L U S T <-- > L U X U R I A

Red - W R A T H <-- > I R A

Yellow - G R E E D <-- > A V A R I T I A

Violet - P R I D E <-- > S U P E R B I A

Green - E N V Y <-- > I N V I D I A

Orange - G L U T T O N Y <--> G U L A

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Quinn West - MC - !!FUBAR!!

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