Were You Planning to Rule a Primitive Tribe?

Professor Bill Roscoe was run ragged that day.

Two classes in the morning, a seminar in the afternoon, and a paper to revise that evening. In between, students kept coming to ask things like, "Professor, does my research direction have any promise?" "Professor, could you look at this paper one more time?" and "Professor, what's wrong with this system? Is it a bug?"

By the time darkness fell, he finally closed the last paper he had annotated and leaned back in his chair. He felt as though half his soul had already gone ahead to claim a seat at the pub.

"I need a proper drink tonight," he muttered.

And it had better be a good one. A big one.

That thought inexplicably reminded Professor Roscoe of Gavin: the relentlessly productive student he had personally let go two months earlier. Academia had lost a monster, while he himself had regained his sleep.

The boy had vanished completely. Not a word from him since.

It was almost as if the whole thing had been a hallucination. Only the absurdly thick, groundbreaking papers in his desk drawer offered any proof that Gavin had existed.

I wonder where he is now, Professor Roscoe thought as he tidied the papers on his desk. I should have given him a phone.

Motorola's MicroTAC was all the rage these days. Plenty of his fellow professors and colleagues at Oxford had begun using the new device.

It was unreasonably expensive and hardly compact, but for an eleven-year-old who could write the architecture of modern computing into papers ahead of its time, a means of communication seemed reasonable enough.

Unfortunately, he had been so relieved that the boy was finally going to rest for a few months that it had never occurred to him to arrange an easier way to keep in touch.

"What a mistake." The professor shook his head ruefully.

He hasn't gotten into trouble, has he?

A sudden worry came over him.

Just then—

Bang! The window was knocked halfway open.

A package was tossed in from outside without the slightest care. It smacked against the corner of his desk and knocked over a stack of student assignments beside it.

Professor Roscoe jolted, nearly flinging the Parker pen in his hand across the room.

"Oh, hell!"

He looked up sharply. His first thought was that some undergraduate had finally cracked under the pressure and decided to take revenge on society by surprising a professor at work in his office.

Instead, at the window, he saw an—

Owl.

It was dusty gray and perfectly composed, its talons planted on the window frame as it preened its wings. Apparently, that "precision delivery" had met every standard of modern postal etiquette.

"..."

Professor Roscoe stared at it for two seconds before slowly shifting his gaze to the package on his desk.

On the outside, the sender's name read:

"Gavin Gu."

He stared at the name for several seconds before he was finally sure he had read it correctly.

"...Wonderful," the professor said softly. "Owls are playing postman now."

The Owl remained at the window, looking every bit the professional: You'd better open it quickly. I still have to fly back.

Professor Roscoe took a deep breath and opened the package.

There wasn't much inside.

A letter lay on top.

Beneath it was a stack of papers Gavin had written. The familiar handwriting, the familiar line of reasoning, the familiar terrifying air—Professor Roscoe had barely opened one before he was transported back to the days when that eleven-year-old had buried him under a relentless stream of manuscripts.

The letter was even more outrageous.

In it, Gavin asked him to help gather a collection of books on the following subjects:

Fundamental psychology.

Cognitive biases.

Trauma and stress.

Hypnotic induction.

Behavioral suggestion.

Preferably, they would also cover long-term repression, self-loathing, and subconscious structures.

The reason he gave was remarkably vague, leaving a professor whose specialty was computer science at a loss.

Professor Roscoe finished reading the letter, glanced at the Owl still preening by the window, and finally began to consider a question in earnest:

Did I drink too much last night and never wake up? Or did someone put mushrooms from the Netherlands in my drink?

These days, normal academic correspondence happened by email.

Writing letters was still common enough.

But receiving one by Owl certainly wasn't.

Especially from someone who had vanished without a word for over two months.

"What on earth is he doing...?" the professor murmured, holding the letter. "Is he planning to brainwash someone?"

When the human in front of it failed to respond for so long, the Owl gave the window frame a light peck.

As if to remind him: Hurry up and write back.

"All right, all right."

Professor Roscoe, who had been about to leave for the day, had no choice but to sit down at his desk again, pick up his pen, and start writing.

He also summoned his doctoral students and gave them a baffling assignment:

Go to the library and borrow a batch of psychology books for him.

A while later, the Owl finally departed, satisfied.

Professor Roscoe stood at the window, looking out into the empty night. After a moment's silence, he arrived at a heartfelt conclusion:

"Should I give up drinking?"

A day later, Gavin received a reply.

It arrived at the Hogwarts breakfast table.

When the Owl dropped the package in front of him, Ernie and Justin both glanced over instinctively. It was so heavy that the sound it made hitting the table suggested someone had tried to ship an entire small masonry building through the postal service.

"What did you buy this time?" Justin asked.

"Knowledge," Gavin said.

"Could you answer a question like a normal person once in a while?"

"That would be a waste of time."

Justin gave up.

Gavin opened the package and found Professor Roscoe's reply first.

He read the letter from beginning to end. At "Are you living among some primitive tribe and planning to use psychology to rule them, then brainwash them all one by one?" he finally paused.

"The professor has quite an imagination," he said under his breath.

"What?" Ernie asked.

"Nothing." Gavin folded the letter. "I was just confirming that Oxford professors are, on the whole, mentally sound."

"Oxford professors?" Justin sounded surprised to hear the word in the wizarding world. "You know a professor at Oxford?"

"More or less," Gavin said vaguely, plainly unwilling to dwell on it.

Otherwise, this prospective Eton College student might have all sorts of other questions.

The rest of the package was more straightforward.

Books, every one of them.

And they were books from the Oxford library.

Introduction to Psychology, Cognition and Behavior, Basics of Hypnosis, Traumatic Memory, Suggestion and Self-Induction—even two research books clearly aimed at specialists.

That was the convenience of Oxford: finding books was never a problem.

Gavin looked at the stack in excellent spirits.

Now the preliminary preparations were finally more or less complete. It was time to put his real skills to work.

By then, it was already mid-December.

Gavin had gone a full two weeks without deliberately casting a spell.

During the first few days, the discomfort had been quite pronounced.

It was a subtle but persistent sense that something was wrong, rather like withdrawal.

As if his brain had suddenly lost its dopamine, a shut-in had lost his favorite soda, or a gym bro had been told by his doctor that he could never work out again.

After that came a feeling of swelling pain. He constantly felt as though something inside him was about to burst out. If he had to compare it to anything, it was like carrying a Xenomorph that was about to tear its way free.

For a few days, he even wondered whether he had overestimated how controllable and safe "not casting spells" would be as an experiment.

Fortunately, as time went on, the swelling pain gradually faded.

Something else took its place.

Something more troublesome, and harder to describe.

—Gavin felt as though he was experiencing more emotions.

No, not more.

More precisely, emotions that had always been there were being amplified.

Irritation.

Disappointment.

Sensitivity.

Elation.

Grief.

Every emotion ran wild in a different direction, like horses let loose from their reins.

They were all becoming harder to control. Nothing like this had happened in a long time, not since Gavin had begun practicing Meditation.

The most obvious change was in his sleep.

Gavin used to fall asleep quickly.

Once he lay down, he was usually asleep within minutes. It had been even easier since his arrival in this world: he was young, healthy, and had practiced Meditation for a long time. His sleep had been as reliable as a premium automatic shutdown program.

Lately, things had been different.

He had begun having trouble falling asleep.

Like many people with insomnia, his mind remained in a state that was not exactly overactive after the lights went out, but not peaceful either. Thoughts he could usually gather up with ease now wandered slowly through his head like a small group of unruly students. They weren't making much noise, but they wouldn't go back to their seats.

Worse, even Meditation no longer went as smoothly as it once had.

Before, he could close his eyes, slow his breathing, gather his stray thoughts, and turn his attention inward. He would quickly settle into it. Now he was like a clumsy beginner: whenever he tried to empty his mind and observe his thoughts, distractions surged more fiercely than when he was fully awake, sweeping him along and refusing to let him break free.

"So stored-up Magic affects emotions too..." One night in the Room of Requirement, Gavin opened his eyes after once again struggling through Meditation. "The relationship between emotion and Magic is closer than I thought."

In fact, it was easy enough to understand.

Casting Dark Magic required a great deal of negative emotion, just as the Patronus Charm required a great deal of happiness.

If emotions could affect Magic, then Magic could naturally affect emotions.

For a long time, scientists believed the brain-gut axis worked in only one direction: the brain influenced the gut. But the latest research showed that the Probiotics in your gut also played a part in determining your moods.

So, with large amounts of Magic accumulating, the path toward becoming an Obscurus was driven faster and faster by a positive feedback loop.

Accumulated Magic made a person more sensitive and more vulnerable to pressure from their surroundings.

That pressure also brought negative emotions.

And those negative emotions were amplified while Magic continued to build.

The amplified emotions then drove the repression of Magic even further...

Once someone's talent reached a certain level, becoming an Obscurus was almost inevitable.

Like a pressure cooker at extreme heat and pressure—filled with Hydrogen, no less.

One spark, and it blew.

Soon, Gavin wasn't the only one to notice the change. The people who spent every day with him noticed too.

The first time was in the Hufflepuff Common Room.

The common room was warm that evening. The Fireplace crackled, a little snow had begun to drift past the round windows, and textbooks from every year lay scattered across the tables among half-eaten snacks. Several older students were discussing their plans for the Christmas holidays at a fair volume. The whole room had the particular looseness that came with the approach of term's end.

Gavin sat reading in a corner.

The book was Fundamentals of Hypnosis and Suggestion Structures, which Professor Roscoe had sent him.

Even the title sounded decidedly un-Hogwarts, so he had wrapped the book in Parchment to avoid awkward explanations if anyone saw it.

Justin dropped into the seat opposite him and slapped a Quidditch practice schedule on the table.

"Cedric said six tomorrow morning, as usual," he said. "And he asked me to tell you that snow doesn't count as an excuse to skip."

"That fits with his recent deepening appreciation of suffering," Gavin said.

"And," Justin added, pushing a small plate of snacks toward him, "one of the older girls baked Pumpkin Pasties. Try one."

Gavin didn't look up. "No."

Justin paused.

"Don't you usually have one?"

"I don't want one today."

There was nothing wrong with the words themselves. The problem was how Gavin had said them.

Usually, Gavin was polite and would turn down an offer courteously. Today, he sounded as though he were shooing away a noisy fly, with an edge of annoyance in his voice.

Justin waited two seconds before drawing the plate back.

"...All right."

He said nothing more, only giving Gavin a puzzled look.

There was a trace of confusion in it. Gavin rarely refused good food; however busy he was, he would at least take a bite.

Gavin noticed it himself.

After a moment's silence, he closed his book and added:

"Sorry."

Justin blinked.

"You're apologizing today?"

"Didn't I before?"

"You used to just say thank you," Justin said. "Apologies were pretty rare."

That was a fair assessment.

Gavin rubbed his brow.

"I haven't been sleeping well lately."

Justin looked at him, and his expression finally relaxed a little.

"Then say so! You scared me," he said, still a little shaken. "I thought you were finally getting ready to hate the whole world. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you became a Dark Lord."

Clearly, Justin had been reading up on the wizarding world's Dark Lords.

Gavin glanced at him.

Somehow, that offhand joke struck a nerve.

He really did feel as though something had been increasingly wrong with him lately.

"Hate the whole world." Gavin tried to lighten the mood with a joke. "I haven't reached that stage yet."

"Wait, that's actually part of your plan?"

Justin rolled his eyes. He didn't believe for a second that Hufflepuff could produce a Dark Lord.

"Depends on my mood."

"...I'm starting to regret asking. If you do decide to become a Dark Lord, let me know. I'll move my whole family to the moon."

"Sure."

The second time was during training with Cedric.

Cedric spotted the Golden Snitch during that flight, but a Quaffle suddenly came his way and threw off his rhythm. In the end, he missed the fleeting chance to catch it.

When Cedric landed, he felt a little awkward and thought he'd brush it off with a joke, as usual.

Instead, Gavin cut him off sharply and angrily pointed out his mistake, pulling no punches.

Cedric was stunned. He wondered what he'd done to offend Gavin. He had never seen him so angry.

Only after Gavin finished and saw Cedric's expression did he realize his emotions had taken control of him again.

The third time was at St. Mungo's.

While Gavin was talking with Cordelia, a Healer rushing past accidentally bumped into him. Gavin glared at the Healer for a long time.

It wasn't until Cordelia asked what was wrong that he came to his senses.

He made an excuse and hurriedly ended his visit that day.

In the Room of Requirement, the blackboard read:

[Day 14 without casting spells]

[Current symptoms:]

[1. Withdrawal: primarily a sense of emptiness (resolved)]

[2. Physical reaction: primarily pressure and pain in the head and chest (resolved)]

[3. Psychological reaction: emotions heightened across the board and difficult to control, accompanied by insomnia, irritability, and other symptoms (ongoing)]

"And then there's—" Gavin looked at the fourth item he had just added.

[4. Psychological reaction: resistance to casting spells and reluctance to pick up a Wand (ongoing)]

That was the most troublesome one.

"I'm not going to turn into an Obscurus, am I?" Gavin was beginning to feel that his research plan was spiraling out of control. "That would be a disaster."

"I need to do something."

Gavin turned his gaze to Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in the Human Mind, the book he had been reading lately.

Professor Roscoe had recommended it after speaking with a leading psychologist at Oxford. A theory its author proposed had given Gavin an idea. He had a preliminary plan, but he had yet to put it into practice.

Now, it seemed he couldn't wait any longer.