Vial of Black Ink - The Soulless Corpse
Summary: A collection of stories centered on Barty/Hermione.
This is going to be a collection of stories for the Harry Potter Halloween Collection Competition centered on this pairing. It will hold exactly thirty one chapters, one for each day of October; but they will be uploaded in small bits and pieces rather than individually, so there won't be an update every day. Some may be connected to each other, if that's the case roman numerals will be used alongside the original title to tell you which part you're on (these will not necessarily be uploaded one after the other if this is the case). Prompts used will be at the end of the chapter, looking ahead to see what the content may or may not be is forbidden and will resort in your flesh being used in unspeakable acts.
Now, let's start Halloween off early; shall we? *cackles in the background as darkness descends on the land*
She stepped off of the stone and onto the dirt, clutching the clipboard in her hands to her chest. Hermione wasn't sure if it was because the place remained surrounded by Dementors - with a much more sturdy leash after the events of the war - or if it was the storm that was raging above; perhaps it was simply this place that made her blood run cold.
Numerous tombstones reached up from the ground, the stone at the edges were chipped, hollow dips and imperfections in the stone created from the weather conditions here. Not a single tree, even stripped of leaves stood in the dirt. The stretch of land in front of her was empty beyond those lopsided stones. Further back she could see rotten pieces of bark sticking out of the ground from the wood crosses that use to be used to mark the graves of the prisoners that died here.
There had to be at least a hundred marked with those thin planks. A couple hundred more graves were marked by the stones and the words on them had yet to fade. At least she didn't have to catalog those in the back. It would have been impossible with the state those markers were in.
Even so she wished she didn't have to be here at all. She would much rather be back at the Ministry, but she had made the treatment of prisoners in Azkaban her priority after the war; so it couldn't be helped. Hermione had thought when she signed up for the task though that would just include those that were living. Not the dead ones as well.
She drew in a breath from the moist air and stepped out from under the veranda, shoulders already lowering in phantom misery when her clothes were soaked through from the rain in seconds.
Hermione gripped her quill and began scribbling down the names of those that were dead as she passed the tombstones, merely recording that according to the stones they should be dead and buried. She stopped upon seeing his name though.
Bartemius Nile Crouch Junior
1962-1980
That was a lie. He hadn't died here, but in Hogwarts back in Fourth Year, or rather, his soul had died. His mother was buried beneath this stone, not him. Where had his father's body been buried? She should have the woman dug up and placed in the same cemetery as her husband, preferably right next to him. All of them should be put next to their dead relatives if the living members of the family wished it.
Hermione made a small note on the scroll to remind herself of this later as she turned from the grave, marking a few more names down in the process as she passed more of the gray stones.
As the mud squelched beneath her shoe, trying to suck her foot down, something wrapped around her ankle, sending her off balance when she tugged up with her foot and causing her to land face first into the watered-down dirt.
The rancid smell similar to wet dog invaded her nostrils and Hermione gasped, wrenching her head back and up, out of the mud. Globs of the brown muck moved like a snail down her cheeks and she raised a hand to wipe the majority of it off, leaving dark wet streaks running down her face. The rain should clean the rest off easily enough. Hermione was about to look for her scroll and quill that had been lost when she fell only to feel a number of appendages grasping at her ankle and pulling, hard.
She turned her head quickly, eyes wide to see a hand wrapped around her ankle, the wrist slowly emerging from the mud. From the sucking sounds below a much larger form was trying to reach the surface as well. Her breathing stopped as matted down hair began to emerge as well. "What..." This was impossible. The dead did not come back to life; they stayed dead. Had someone been trying to perfect necromancy here with the numerous corpses? If she had these graves dug up would there even be bodies beneath them?
A groan came from the dirt: making her mind go blank, her entire body freezing up, her breath stopping short even as her heart pounded faster in her chest. Another hand reached through the mud, stopping it from falling into the hole as the figure dragged themselves out from the ground. The rain fell in rivers over his skin, a dirty ragged cloth that covered the upper body as he pulled his legs free from the mud.
When the man raised his head and she could see his face a sigh of relief escaped her. It wasn't necromancy at all. "Barty..." No wonder she hadn't been told where his soulless body was; someone had buried him, likely expecting his body to die as well out here.
Hermione reached forward to disentangle his fingers from her ankle, wrapping her own around his as she stood up, pulling him along with her. The trousers he wore were also ripped in various places, stained from the mud and now soaked from the rain. Who had done this to him?
She grunted softly as he leaned against her, not completely prepared to be supporting a portion of his body weight. If only she could ask him who had done this, if he could actually answer her. It was rare for a prisoner that had received the Dementor's Kiss to speak even a single word, usually it didn't go past animalistic sounds.
"Come on. I'll take you back to your cell, and then I'll see to getting you some new clothes and food as well," Hermione spoke softly to him before she began to walk back to the veranda, towards the door that would take her into the Azkaban prison.
She would need to have a talk with the guards about the mistreatment of prisoners.
Prompt used: 55. Azkaban Burial Grounds (i simply couldn't pass this one up; it's too damn perfect for this pair)