The Sinclair family traveled by Floo Powder to a manor so hidden, Victor doubted it even appeared on maps. The moment they stepped into the darkened hall, he felt wards pressing on his skin like invisible hands, weighing and probing him.
Naomie walked with stiff shoulders, her lips pressed thin. John looked no more comfortable, but it was Naomie who carried the authority here. She had written ahead, but Cassian Rosier had agreed only reluctantly to see them.
The room they entered was stark and cold, lit only by a single enchanted lantern. Shelves of books lined the walls, but the air was heavy, as though no laughter had lived here for decades.
And there, waiting in a high-backed chair, was Cassian Rosier.
He was an old man with sharp cheekbones, silver hair pulled back neatly, and eyes so pale they seemed colorless. He didn't rise when they entered; he only studied them, gaze like a blade.
Naomie bowed her head slightly. "Uncle Cassian."
John stiffened. Uncle? Victor thought, glancing up at his mother. She had never once mentioned this man.
Cassian's voice was calm but dry as parchment. "Naomie. You bring your husband and child into my solitude. Why?"
Naomie placed her hands on Victor's shoulders. "Because my son is a natural Legilimens. He cannot control it. He hears thoughts without meaning to. If he is left unguided…" She trailed off.
Cassian leaned forward slightly. His gaze fell on Victor like a weight. "Come here, boy."
Victor stepped forward, heart pounding. The old man's presence felt heavy, suffocating, like the air in the room bent toward him.
Cassian did not move. He only looked — and then Victor felt it. A touch, featherlight, brushing against his mind.
He tried to resist, pulling up the walls he'd been training to build. But Cassian slipped through them as though they were paper.
For the briefest moment, Victor felt something take.
And Cassian saw.
He saw flashes — tall glass towers that no wizard had ever built, a world of lamps without flame, a scarred man with round glasses, a boy reading words about magic in a book that had never been written.
Then Cassian withdrew.
His expression never changed. But in his pale eyes lingered something new: suspicion… and interest.
Naomie had seen the flicker. "You went too deep," she said sharply. "He is only a child."
Cassian waved the protest away, though his gaze never left Victor. "A child… with a mind like no other I have ever touched."
Victor said nothing. His small fists clenched at his sides. Did he see? Did he know?
But Cassian only leaned back into his chair. "Very well. If he is to be trained, then I will train him. Not because you ask, Naomie… but because I am curious."
Naomie exhaled in relief. John, less reassured, stepped forward. "You will treat him gently—"
Cassian's thin lips curved into something like a smile, though it was not kind. "No. I will treat him honestly. If the boy is to survive in this world, he must learn what others cannot."
For the first lesson, Cassian led Victor into another room, empty save for a stone floor and a single chair.
"Sit," he ordered.
Victor obeyed.
"Legilimency is not about power," Cassian began. "It is about precision. A hammer smashes the mind; a scalpel reveals it. Today, you will learn how sharp your scalpel is."
He raised his wand, and before Victor could blink, the old man's spell struck.
The world tilted. Victor gasped as cold water filled his lungs — he was sinking, drowning, panic clawing at his throat. His instincts screamed that he would die.
But somewhere inside, he understood: This isn't real. It's his mind.
Victor pushed back. He clawed through the illusion with sheer will, forcing the drowning sensation to break apart like shattered glass.
When the vision cleared, he was still sitting in the chair, gasping for air that had never left him.
Cassian's pale eyes gleamed. "Good. Most children cry. You fought."
Victor's chest heaved. He stared up at the old man, shaken but unbroken.
Cassian tapped his wand against his palm thoughtfully. "Yes. You are different. I do not know why. But I will find out. Until then… you will learn."
Victor swallowed hard, determination hardening inside him. If I'm to survive this world, I must master the mind — or be mastered.
Victor's lessons with Cassian began the very next week. Three times, without fail, Naomie would bring him to the old manor. John hated it — he muttered about the danger of "that old vulture" and his unhealthy fascination — but Naomie stood firm. She had seen the flicker of curiosity in Cassian's eyes, and she knew he was the only one who could shape Victor's gift before it consumed him.
Cassian never greeted Victor warmly. Their "lessons" were ordeals.
During the first months, Cassian taught him to build walls. At first, Victor's mindscape was little more than a flimsy fence. Thoughts spilled everywhere, leaving him vulnerable. Cassian broke through them again and again, until Victor learned to tighten, harden, focus.
"Every mind is a house," Cassian said. "Yours is full of unlocked doors and open windows. Shut them. Bolt them. Choose who you let in."
Victor learned to create barriers — not yet perfect, but enough to keep casual intrusions at bay.
But Cassian rarely allowed him to feel secure. Sometimes, in the middle of a lesson, Cassian would strike with Legilimency without warning. At breakfast, mid-sentence, even as Victor was tying his shoes. Each time Victor reeled, and each time Cassian said the same thing.
"The enemy does not wait until you are ready."
By year two, when Victor's walls grew stronger, Cassian shifted to deeper Legilimency.
"A Legilimens does not merely listen," Cassian said, pacing the stone chamber. "He hunts. He threads through the cracks, he feels the weaknesses, he learns what others hide."
He forced Victor to practice on captured animals first — sensing the instincts of a frightened rabbit, the sleepy haze of an owl. Then, to Victor's unease, Cassian brought in people: an old squib servant, a petty thief he claimed owed him favors.
Victor hated it at first. Reading the minds of strangers felt like a violation. But then he remembered the psychopath from Godric's Hollow, the smiling man who dreamed of blood. Evil wore masks. If Legilimency stripped those masks away, perhaps it wasn't only a weapon, but a shield.
By the time Victor turned seven, he could skim thoughts with subtlety. He practiced slipping in and out unnoticed — like a whisper of wind through an open door.
After three years, Cassian introduced a new torment: illusions crafted within Victor's own mind. Sometimes Victor would walk into the manor only to find the floor vanish beneath him, plunging him into endless dark. Other times he'd hear Naomie's voice screaming, see his father struck down.
"It's not real," Victor repeated to himself, again and again, forcing himself to pierce the lies.
Cassian watched with cold satisfaction. "Good. A mind that cannot tell truth from illusion is a mind waiting to be broken."
But he also taught Victor how to craft illusions of his own. Fleeting tricks at first — a false memory here, a misleading image there. Small tools of misdirection. Dangerous tools.
As Victor grew older, the lessons grew crueler. Cassian once left him alone in the manor for a full day, with no food, no water, only wards that whispered lies into his ears until he nearly broke. Another time, he forced Victor to relive his most painful childhood memory — the drowning illusion of their very first meeting — over and over until Victor could shatter it with a thought.
Victor hated him sometimes. He went home trembling, sweating, shaken to his bones. But when he looked at himself in the mirror, he also saw someone stronger, sharper.
By the time Victor was ten, he had built an arsenal of abilities:
His mind was layered and fortified, a house with bolted doors and hidden passageways. Even Cassian admitted it was "no longer trivial to break."
He could enter and exit minds with subtlety, distinguishing surface thoughts from deeper memories.
He could plant fleeting images in others' minds — not permanent, but enough to distract or mislead.
He had faced fear, exhaustion, and despair within his own mind and learned to anchor himself.
Cassian never praised him outright, but once — just once — he said:
"You will not drown, boy. Not if you keep swimming."
—
The summer before Victor turned eleven, Cassian ended a lesson abruptly. He stood, looking down at the boy with those pale, unreadable eyes.
"You are strong enough to hold your own now," Cassian said. "But Hogwarts will not care for your strength. They will care for your loyalty, your cleverness, your ambition… or your heart. Choose which you show them carefully. And above all—" He leaned close, voice like steel. "Do not trust anyone with your mind. Ever."
Victor nodded, though his heart raced.
That same week, a parchment envelope arrived at the Sinclair home. Written in emerald ink, sealed with wax:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Victor held it in his hands, excitement and apprehension warring in his chest.
The years with Cassian had forged him, carving discipline into his bones. And though he would soon leave for Hogwarts, Victor knew the training would never stop. Every day, every glance, every thought was another chance to sharpen his mind.
To Be Continued…