Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)
Assignment #3; Potions - Veritaserum; Task #3 - Write about someone forced to tell the truth (can be via veritaserum or another way)
Word Count: 1,005
Warnings: Horror.
"State your full name."
"Rome Veliu Harton."
"What is your place of origin?"
"Athens, Greece."
"Date of birth?"
"March 17, 1903."
"Age?"
"42."
There were muttering and whispers spread across the whole chamber, not enough to be a nuisance but discernable within the prevailing silence. The people, known more widely as the council, were cold and tired of the numerous trials they've had to sit through, and they were glad that this one was one of the last, but also one of the most important, trials left to witness and judge.
The Nurembith Trials were held in the face of the end of the war. The council was to judge the soldiers and generals of the losing side that were the driving force of numerous war crimes and sentence them accordingly. These trials were hastily done, a quick decision that the superiors of the council had made when faced with the death and destruction that they had witnessed upon arriving.
Thousands upon thousands of trials had been conducted, most of them finished quickly as the soldiers and generals quickly admitted their crimes when under the influence of veritaserum. Many of the trials had led to the uncovering of sickening, truly vile actions committed by the soldiers and generals, some of whom took a sick, perverse pleasure in causing others pain and suffering.
After months of sitting through these trials, they were finally at an ending point. The council had finally taken out one of the last people left to judge and brought him to trial. They were all warned about him from soldiers and prisoners alike.
'Don't go near him. He'll kill you all.' Some said.
'Bound him with your strongest chains and put magic repressing cuffs on him. He cannot be given any freedom or leeway. You'll listen to me if you don't want to die.' One general whispered, eyes wide and shoulders shaking.
'He's a monster. Kill him while you have the chance.' A child said, eyes woefully dark with skin that's been tainted and scarred.
They took heed to the warnings they were given and bound him with their strongest wards and chains. He was a strange prisoner, as he didn't beg or cry. In fact, he didn't make a sound at all. Not even when they burst into his room and captured him along with all the other soldiers and generals on that fateful day, rightfully called "La victoire n'est qu'une illusion", French for "Victory is an illusion."
He didn't even protest or defend himself. He just let them drag him away peacefully, even when they bound his magic and locked him up. Through all that he had a serene expression on his face, revealing nothing of his thoughts or feelings, though his eyes were cold and eerily blank. He made them all uncomfortable with his silence and compliance with his treatment and imprisonment.
They put him in a heavily warded and guarded cell, only coming by twice a day to push a plate of food consisting of dirty water, a piece of stale, moldy bread, and some watery onion soup through the slot of his cell door. Otherwise, they left him in total isolation. The job of giving him food was an unfavorable one to the guards because they were stared at with a kind of laser focus intensity when they came down, and whenever they went back for the plate holding the food, it was always exactly as they had left it, not a single food item touched.
"What was your rank inside Grindelwald's army?"
"A medical doctor."
"Did you care for the ill?"
"No."
"What exactly did you do then?"
"I conducted experiments on able-bodied children."
The council's murmuring got louder and more exuberant, many exclaiming disbelief and horror. The leading court official brought order to the court and ordered everyone to be quiet.
"What did these experiments involve?" The court officials voice was as it had been before, cool and concise, but this time it held a note of unease in it as well.
"Injecting them with life-threatening or painful diseases and see if they're magic could combat the disease or even cure it. I also took their blood and vital organs out of them by surgical means and recorded if they would heal or not."
There was a resounding silence in the chamber, solemn and oppressive.
"Where are these children now?" The court officials voice cut through the air like a whip, fast and furious.
"Dead."
The court official, Brody Likamod, closed his eyes from a brief second, grieving the loss of every child subjected to Rome's torture.
"How many children?"
"Thousands."
"Do you feel remorse for the crimes you've committed?"
"No."
Someone openly sobbed out in the stands of the chamber, with many others stupified from the new information.
"Someone take him to the execution chamber. Now." Brody's fury-laced voice echoed throughout the chamber.
Two guards came up to Rome and grabbed him roughly by his chains, too disgusted and horrified to even touch him. They dragged him off to the chamber, which was a small room that everyone stayed clear of. Inside there was a person, dressed in simple black robes with the hood up, shadowing their face.
The two guards threw him into the room and closed the door quickly, before leaving as abruptly as they came. Rome, now strewed across the floor from being thrown in, looked and saw the person standing above him, their wand at the ready. For the first time in a very long time, he smiled.
The striking green light from the wand hit him dead on and the person who owned the wan swiftly left the room, their job done.