Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies

by The Guy Who Writes

Rehabilitation Part 10.2: Relief

Sombra continued to sleep peacefully on the ground before him.

…

…

…

"Avada Kedavra," he tried again.

…

"Avada-" he began for a third time, then stopped. And not just because he was trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Normally, at this point in the process, he was utterly disinterested in his victim. But right now, he had just noticed…

It should be impossible…

But he seemed to be imagining himself experiencing an echo of the Changeling Sense. He felt that his target was free of stress and worry. Again, that should have been impossible. He shouldn't have access to that magic right now…

Did he somehow have access…? And then it suddenly hit him.

No. No, he's in his human form, and even if he wasn't, his target is asleep. He does not currently have access to his Changeling Sense, and even if he did it wouldn't work. Obviously. What he finally has access to…

The traceries of anti-light dissipated from the air, harmlessly dispelling when the sacrifice failed to be made. (He had designed his own ritual to be failsafe, of course.)

Empathy.

The word arose in his mind, and he knew at once that it was the correct one, despite self-flattering impulses to the contrary. He knew, upon thinking that word, that he did not master empathy back when he practiced Legilimency to the point of becoming the best in the world.

There have always been minds he could not fully read, surfaces he could not fully understand. Every expert on Legilimency, himself included, has accepted that as a brute fact of reality. To truly comprehend and read the minds of the mentally ill, for instance, would require a Legilimens to be mentally damaged himself.

But, he finally admitted to himself, there are still healthy patterns of thought I have yet to comprehend.

He had never thought or sought to Legilimize happy minds. He almost always practiced in neutral settings – at work, in public, in bars, on the street. And when it wasn't neutral, when the minds he examined were emotionally charged, they were typically charged with counterproductive emotion. That had been deliberate on his part. It helped him know what mindsets he still needed to comprehend, giving him incentive to learn as many errors in thinking as possible.

But there is a flip side to that – an unseen downside, an opportunity cost. He had learned many, many errors in thinking so that he could comprehend them, avoid them, and exploit them when he saw them occur in others. He had not thought to learn correct ways of thinking through Legilimency. He'd thought the Diadem of Ravenclaw would suffice for that. And it did. For matters of logic. But nothing more.

Even back during his first token attempts to reach happiness, he had not considered that he should, perhaps, attempt to comprehend the thought processes of, say, a mother who had just given birth, or a wise man at peace. If he had thought of that, he might have noticed this deficit sooner.

For uncounted minutes, he stood there with Sombra's slumbering form at his feet, wondering what he should do next.

Eventually, he made a decision, and aimed his wand at the unicorn once more.

---

"Welcome back," said Celestia with a polite nod to Riddle. "I take it the threat is over?"

"Not quite," said Riddle. He removed the disillusionment from Sombra's sleeping form, startling Celestia. "Twilight restored the Heart, expelling him from the kingdom, but he has a last resort of some kind. Killing him would be the safest solution, but I'm curious how you think it should be handled from here."

There was a pause.

Then there was questioning.

Riddle described the story of what happened, quoting Sombra's final few words in particular.

"I think a horn suppressor and a magic isolation room should suffice until Luna can ask him exactly what he intended to do," Celestia decided. "If his horn was glowing, it is almost certainly something he must detonate manually."

"And if not?"

She sent a Patronus message to Twilight Sparkle, ordering her student to evacuate the Crystal Empire's citizenry beyond the city wards.

There was a good deal of waiting. In the meantime, Celestia made preparations for the interrogation. And then, finally, after Celestia received word from Twilight, Sombra was woken and the inquisition began.

Sombra's final resort – essentially a Blood Fort sacrifice that had to be manually activated – was discovered and defused with surprising rapidity. A date for his official trial followed not long after.

During the questioning, despite being separated by a thick pane of magic-resistant glass, Riddle felt Sombra's emotions. Not by magically sensing them, but merely by watching his facial expressions. Looking at Sombra's face, reading his emotions… it was not the cold and distant pattern-recognition it had been all his life. He felt reflections of Sombra's true emotions within himself. It likely helped that the Dark Lord's emotions were more understandable to Riddle than standard pony emotions.

So it hadn't been a one-off. The Changeling magic must have left a permanent impact on his brain after using it for so long.

After a bit of trial and error, he determined the most effective way to mirror emotions non-magically: maintain eye contact. The thought then occurred to him that he had just gone through a year of effort to unlock what seemed to be the muggle version of Legilimency. Except that it was less reliable, less useful, and even more difficult to learn than mind-reading.

That cynical perspective did not cause him to suddenly hate this turn of events. He felt his brain chemistry operating in a new, yet still accurate way, just as he once had with Ravenclaw's Diadem. That, too, had reduced stress in his mind, only it gave him perfect clarity of thought and focus when tackling a problem. It couldn't reveal any answers, but it could put him in the best state of mind to find them.

Something very similar is happening now. It's not that he has perfect clarity of emotion. It's not that he has perfect 'mental health', however that is defined. He's only a beginner at the moment. But he is finally learning true empathy. And if learning to sense emotions with the aid of the Changelings is anything like learning to think with the aid of the Diadem, it should eventually reach the point where he no longer needs the magical crutch.

And again, he doesn't mind. He understands, both logically and instinctively, that his brain is finally beginning to work as evolution intended. Which isn't to say his mind wasn’t working properly before. His brain had been working 'as nature intended' in the same way that a man with little muscle has a body that works 'as intended'. In other words, his brain had been working properly, but he was not reaching his full potential.

One of his primary ambitions in life has always been to reach his full potential – his full physical potential, his full magical potential, and most importantly, his full mental potential.

Now he knows he has fallen short. His mind has mastered logic, but that's only half the equation. To reach peak mental performance, he must grow into his full emotional potential as well. For the longest time, he'd thought he had reached it, but he now knows he has not.

What he had – what he still has – is perfect control over his reactions to his own emotions, which is not the same as reaching peak emotional potential. As Luna would put it, a pony who is in perfect control of his actions at all times but is constantly stressed and unhappy has not reached peak emotional potential. What he needs is to feel better emotions in the first place.

For the first time since all of this began, he allowed himself to truly acknowledge that failing. He admitted to himself, on a fundamental level, that there remains room for improvement. Thus, for the first time since all of this began, he felt true motivation for his current ambition, the kind that came from the deepest level of his being.

---

Luna's smile was wide when she saw him later, and even wider at his report. She asked if she could hug him, and he allowed it without demanding a favour in return. Out of curiosity, he opened his Changeling Sense, and was almost overwhelmed. If he was in a Changeling body, he would have thrown up ten times over. It was more 'love' than he'd ever felt before.

When Luna noticed his flinch, she asked him about it.

He answered honestly and asked a question in turn.

Luna said she loves to encourage a willing and driven pony to virtue, and to witness them move forward is a beautiful thing to her. What she feels for him is only a drop in the ocean of what she feels for her sister. Is it truly that overwhelming?

Yes. Yes it is.

Comments

[Greenhorn]

A bit short compare to you usual chapter, but it did contain a profound meaning in Riddle's mental development.

[keybounce]

So, 1 xp to be spent on "good"-aligned traits? :-).

The first of many, I suppose.

[Booster Spice]

No wonder it took him so long to escape the mirror.

[LNMAnonymous]

11433498
In fact it's currently the shortest chapter! It's a really important one- I had found myself thinking after the last rehabilitation chapter that that felt like the Rubicon- not that he could no longer be redeemed, but that he no longer had any plausible path to redemption in Equestria, and that I was confused because it no longer made sense how he got out and how the story would possibly wrap up in any reasonable amount of time with such a blow to his progress. Had I noticed that confusion, I'd have predicted the AK failed- and looking back at the last rehabilitation chapter, somebody did!

[Poparakelis]

For the first time since all of this began, he allowed himself to truly acknowledge that failing. He admitted to himself, on a fundamental level, that there remains room for improvement. Thus, for the first time since all of this began, he felt true motivation for his current ambition, the kind that came from the deepest level of his being.

That, is a huge improvement

[Black--Soul]

"Avada-" he began for a third time, then stopped. And not just because he was trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

For fuck sake... I got tricked again!

Massiv break of expectations, guess what we learned of dark lord Voldemort isn't accurate enough to judge dark aliment Riddle Tome.