Chapter II: Dissimulation part II: Sufficiently accurate simulations:

The confundus charm is unique among nearly all charms in its method. Like many other spells(such as, say, Imperio) it is meant to control the actions of the victim. However, unlike Imperio and Legilimentic control, the spell does not implant low level hypnotic commands into the mind of the subject. Rather, it appears to override parts of the subject's consciousness entirely, replacing those portions with the caster's desired thoughts, memories, and emotions. This makes the spell simultaneously far more dangerous and more versatile. On the one hand, an inexpert caster can leave their victim a drooling, unrecoverable wreck, replacing their minds with half-built thoughts. On the other hand, an expert can change a person on a far more delicate level, slightly modifying various parts of their minds to create the perfect sleeper agent. In effect, the confundus charm is the scalpel to Imperio's hammer. It takes far more practice to use, but can do far more.

To explain the relevancy of the charm to our mission, consider this: Confundus works on any human being with a magical core, including those who have unfortunately been Kissed or who are brain dead. A skilled legilimens can recover enough information from a person's mind to emulate them through a confundus in minutes, if not less. The implications are clear. Magical transfer of consciousness is possible.

-Research log, section X: Conclusions and evaluations. Subsection II: Consciousness emulation(Tower of hogwarts, July 1993)

XxX

August 31, 1993: 1 day prior to Hogwarts' opening

Colin struggled to wake. It looked like he had had the dream again. His eyes opened and he groaned to find that his sheets were soaked with sweat, just like they had been for the past 5 nights. He really needed to figure out what was going on because this kind of sleep deprivation would seriously screw up his research and could damage his mind. He closed his eyes, trying to reconstruct the dream. After a few seconds, the dream flew back to him, playing behind his eyelids almost against his will.

Hands too large extend from a body that's too big, it's TOO BIG and he can't control it and it's reaching for another him, that's another HIM there on the floor and he looks sick and doesn't move. The hands move and a bit of the other him's hair falls off and he can't understand why any of this is happening, he tries to think about it rationally like Harry taught him but his brain feels like it's broken and missing pieces and before he can even start thinking about that the hands twitch again and there's blue liquid flowing down his throat. Then there is darkness.

His eyes snapped open. He hadn't seen the blue liquid before. That gave him something to work on. He feverishly unzipped his bag and flung out the carefully packed books until he found what he was looking for: his potions textbook. He flipped to the image-based index(one of the features of the new books, Harry had insisted on it for some reason and for the life of him he couldn't remember why, he couldn't remember anything like he should be able to but now wasn't the time to think of problems, now was the time to solve them) and scanned down the page, trying to find anything that could possibly be the liquid from his dreams. Eventually, he caught sight of two potions in a section marked 'Advanced: Only present for demonstrative purposes'. The first was a dark blue, slightly different from the color in his dreams: the Draught of Peace. According to the textbook, the potion served as an emotional depressant and a sedative. Given his dreams, that...didn't seem likely. On the other hand, maybe the weird color was because the potion was prepared incorrectly.

The next potion threw him for a loop: Wolfsbane. The potion was a bright blue, just like he remembered from his dream. Also, its user needed to take it every night for a week before the full moon. If the sky the night before was anything to go by, the full moon would be the next day, if not earlier. That didn't explain the hands, and the other him, but it seemed to make a kind of sense. There was one thing that he needed to check, though. With a goal in mind, Colin walked downstairs and greeted his father.

"Good morning, Da."

Mr. Creevey smiled, though some concern still lingered in his eyes. He knew Colin wasn't sleeping well.

"That it is, Col. How are you feeling?"

Colin shrugged.

"A bit better, Da. How's Dennis?"

Colin's father beamed. "He's doing excellently. He sent me a letter this morning saying that he'd just finished getting the last of his books."

"That's good." Colin fell silent, staring at his father for a few moments.

"Yes, son?"

"I have a question: when I came back from research Wednesday night, did you see any scratches or cuts on my body? Small scrapes, even?"

His father tilted his head for a few seconds, thinking.

"No, son, I can't say you did. You were really pale though. It looked like something had scared you out there. Why?"

"I think...I think I might know why I've been having bad dreams." Colin hesitated.

"Why?" His father urged.

"I...I might be a werewolf. I don't know for sure, and I think that I've been taking potions to fix it. I think that I've been forcing myself to take those potions before making myself forget the experience."

Mr. Creevey's eyes widened and he fell silent for a few seconds, clearly stunned.

"Son...you want to run that by me again? I think I must have misheard."

"Sure, Da. See, the morning after I got home, I checked my wand, and the most spell I'd fired that night was meant to implant commands. Also, I've been having dreams where I drink a potion that looks like one called Wolfsbane. I think I got bitten by a werewolf out there and then used the spell to make sure I'd drink Wolfsbane and not remember drinking it, but I screwed it up slightly so now I remember in dreams."

"...what exactly should I be doing about this, Colin? It sounds like you're in danger, and I have no idea how to help. Should I write the professor that took you and Dennis to buy your books?"

Colin sighed.

"I don't know if there's anything you can do, Da. I don't want to tell her what I think it is in case I'm wrong. Look, I'll be at Hogwarts tomorrow night, and I'll ask the healers to check me over, ok? If this is what I think it is, then I'll be fine."

His father nodded unwillingly.

"If you say so, Col. If you say so."

"Nothing's going to happen to me this year, Da." Colin smiled. "I promise."

XxX

August 31, 1993: one day prior to Hogwarts opening.

9:52 am

Stupefy et Signa!

A red bolt flickered along a dark hallway before sharply curving in midair to slam into a seemingly nondescript wall. A few seconds later, a high, clear sound rang out and a green light shone for a brief moment before shutting off. Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres took note of the light for a moment before turning to a notebook and activating his dictation quill.

Test 101a result: Strings of enchantments can be linked to specific casting words and gestures as a compression method. This suggests that spells as we know them are based enough in the mind of the caster that the caster can, to some extent, combine various spells into a new spell.

After he fell silent, he leaned back against a wall as his eyes closed. Combining spell strings was a taxing mental exercise, even for him. Especially given his particular...versions of the task. On the other hand, he was yielding results! In only a few months, he'd have some basic enchantment sequences finetuned to the point that he could teach them to others!

As he relaxed, Hermione appeared out of a seeming void next to him. That particular trick had taken her a few months and a lot of research into the refractive properties of pressurized air.

"Harry, are you ok?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off.

"Why am I even asking you this question, of course you aren't, look at you. You've been working on this one set of experiments for how many hours straight now? 30? 40?"

Harry sheepishly nodded.

"45 or so, actually, but that isn't especially relevant. I did get some sleep in the interim period. And I need to finish this as soon as possible! Spell strings could massively hasten the stasis process! My work might be tiring but I'm saving lives."

Hermione sighed.

"That was true of the polyjuice research too. And the low level command system for healer reflexes. And the consciousness emulation systems. In fact, if I'm not wrong, every project you've been working on since the Amortentia...incident fit that qualification, did they not?"

"And?"

"Harry, you can't keep doing this to yourself!" Hermione snapped. Her magic seemed to press down on the room. "You're burning yourself out, and I won't just sit by and watch it happen. You won't do this alone, Harry-" She cut herself off before her next words could leave her mouth but they reverberated in her mind. 'because I swore on my life and magic that you'd never have to.'

He caught sight of her expression and whitened.

"Hermione, it's ok. I'll pull back on the experiments for now. I just had my first successful result, anyway."

Her demeanor instantly changed and she stepped closer to him.

"Really? What was it?"

He smiled and raised his wand.

"Observe."

He flicked his wand 3 times at the wall to his left.

Luminos! Stuporfy tenues! Lux sopitum!

The wall lit up briefly before a stunner slammed into it. A moment later, the spot hit by the stunner glowed a faint green. Hermione tilted her head, confused.

"Yes? You've shown me this combination before. Is there something I should be seeing?"

Harry grinned and twisted his wand once.

Stupefy et Signa!

The same set of effects repeated themselves at a slightly faster pace. Hermione's eyes widened as she smiled.

"You figured out spell strings! What was causing the issue?"

"Something about holding every spell in mind simultaneously was a mental stumbling block. I ended up bypassing it by-" Harry's voice froze. A few seconds later, he cursed under his breath.

"Looks like the Vow blocked that one. So be it."

"It's that dangerous?" The secondary, real question was not missed by either of them.

"I don't know, Hermione. I was able to think about teaching healers to do it. I just don't know. Anyway, why'd you come to see me?"

She smiled again, a smaller, weaker smile this time.

"I wanted to remind you that the school year starts tomorrow. Ready for third year?"

A/N: Sorry for the slight delay, the second half of this chapter was difficult to write. The next chapter(either Dissimulation III: Foreground and Background, or Foregrounds and Backgrounds I) should be out in about 2 weeks.

I feel now's as good a time to say it as any: all facts in this story(whether about the canon-verse, MoR-verse, the stuff I'm preserving from the GWatSI-verse or about physical stuff like full moon) are meant to be accurate. If you find mistakes, please tell me(sources if you would).

Plotwise: The chapter title is directly relevant to all three sections of the chapter, and figuring out how will help the reader figure out Harry's method for spell strings.

Please review!