Okay, chapter one. Originally I was gonna skip past the dissection itself, but I decided not to. Hope you like it! This chapter is centered on DP, but most of them probably won't be.
Chapter 1
Sitting on the edge of a cliff, in a rare moment of peace, Danny and Jamie chatted nonchalantly, watching the sunset. No fighting, no flying for their supposed afterlives, no...
Out of nowhere, Danny stopped talking, midsentence. He winced as something hit his arm. Looking down, he blanched.
A dart.
Something flew at Jamie as she looked at him in concern as he started to fall over backwards, passing out. She looked down at her arm.
Another dart.
A cry of joy.
"We got 'em, Mads! Shade and Phantom!" Their father.
Then, Jamie fell backwards, a wave of unexplained fatigue washing over her, then she felt as though she was drowning in darkness, falling down, down, down...
When she woke, she looked around for a moment, disoriented. Then she remembered and started to strain against her bonds, terrified of what was to come.
She looked down at herself and saw that she was strapped with steel bands to a table. A dissection table. She strained even more, trying to melt the bonds off, but they were heatproof, too, apparently. Beside her, Danny was straining as soon as he woke, trying to freeze his way out, with as little success.
Then, their parents came in. They pulled on their gloves, latex snapping ominously. Then the questioning began.
"We've taken your vitals. Why are you warm? Why do you have heartbeats? Why are you breathing?" demanded Maddie.
"We don't know," Danny lied.
"Of course you know. You're just lying, like every other filthy ghost," spat Maddie, slamming a hand onto a black button with a yellow lightning bolt on it.
The effect was immediate. Electricity coursed through their bodies, causing them to strain against their bonds, trying to get away from it, yelling in pain.
Then the shock ended, and they panted for breath, looking fearfully at their parents.
"I suppose we'll never get you to talk. So we'll just have to find out for ourselves," said Maddie, turning away and choosing a scalpel for herself and her husband.
Jamie's eyes widened. "You don't want to do this!" she shouted.
"You don't know what you're doing!" added Danny.
"Ooh! I want to dissect Shade!" said Jack excitedly.
"Sure, Jack. I'll dissect Phantom," replied Maddie, handing him a scalpel. Then she turned to the twins. "And we know exactly what we're doing, ghosts. Getting rid of a couple of public enemies and finding out what makes them tick."
Desperately, Jamie tried to change back, to show them exactly what they were about to do, but before she could, a needle plunged into her arm and she was forced to relax as the slight tranquilizer took effect quickly. She searched for the warmth that was her human form, but she couldn't find it. It didn't seem to be there.
She stared up at her father fearfully, terrified, as he brandished a scalpel happily.
"Not asleep yet... more?" asked Maddie, sounding far-off.
"No... can't move anyway," replied Jack.
A scalpel was lowered and she screamed as it cut into her, slicing her open in an autopsy Y-cut. As she felt flesh being torn aside, she screamed in agony. Flesh was moved and shifted to give her parents a clear view of her insides.
A brief reprieve as the sound of pen on paper was nearly drowned out by her own hoarse breathing as she fought for control, fought to reveal herself, anything to end it. Her parents talked again.
"Breathing... heartbeat... bone structure," said Maddie.
"New information... lungs, heart... exciting," said Jack.
Jamie listened to her own hoarse breaths and her brother's ragged breathing, willing herself to change back. And failing. She heard the portal hiss open and closed. Her ghost sense went off, and she forced her eyes open.
The Box Ghost was staring down, from them, to the scalpels, to their parents, eyes wide. His horrified gaze locked with her pain-filled and exhausted eyes. Then, he turned and fled back through the portal, probably to run his mouth off. Maybe someone could get them out of this mess...
Then her eyes closed again. Their parents returned and started to cut them again. Ectoplasm and blood splashed into her mouth and she choked on the salty taste of her blood and the sour tang of ectoplasm. She spat it out and then shrieked as a hand started to prod around inside of her, feeling foreign and painful among all the things that were actually supposed to be there, with a hand not being one of them. She screamed and shrieked as Jack found her ghostly core and poked it, yelping as it burned him.
"Mads... cores! Shade's is hot!"
"Phantom's... freezing cold!"
She flinched and screamed yet again as more flesh was torn aside and the analysis resumed.
Word spread fast in the Ghost Zone.
Sir Nicholas flew to Dumbledore's office in a hurry. He had never been more thankful that he had already told Dumbledore of Shade and Phantom, or that he knew that they had magic and were important individuals in ghost society. Perhaps he could prevent them from having to endure the horrible fate any further than he could prevent. As he flew through the final wall, he burst out,
"Dumbledore!"
Dumbledore looked up and stood quickly when he saw the dismay and horror on the ghost's features.
As Sir Nicholas relayed the event to him, he strode over to Fawkes and a look of horror and urgency took over his expression. He told Fawkes to deliver a message to Mrs. Weasley, telling her to prepare for two critically injured children, knowing that she would do so with the smallest number of questions and in the least amount of time.
"Where?" he asked.
"Amity Park. Fentonworks. Can you get them out of there, Dumbledore?" he asked.
"With luck."
He Flooed to Grimmauld and then Apparated to Fentonworks, thinking of the birth of the triplets all the while. Harry, Danny, and Jamie. They would meet again now, but under horrible circumstances. Maybe Harry could help to comfort them and help them deal with it. If they still lived. He quickly went into the basement, wincing at the screams and yells clearly audible through the nearly soundproof walls of the lab.
Jamie gasped for breath as another brief reprieve was provided by Jack and Maddie's note taking. It had been hours since the Box Ghost came. Then, she realized that she had just regained control of her ectoplasmic powers. That meant that her body would use them again when she had gone back into pain mode. She couldn't speak for breathlessness and pain, but there was no time to change back. Her parents had just started examining her again, moving things around, looking.
She screeched and glowed with an intense, burning light, and the lab shook as Danny let loose his Ghostly Wail in his agony. Their parents stumbled back, providing another reprieve, but she knew it wouldn't last long. Footsteps came down the steps. Two rays of red light came from the stairway and hit their parents, causing them to go unconscious. Jamie looked dazedly. At this point, blood loss and pain had long since robbed her of her senses and the majority of her interaction with the world. An old man with long hair and a long beard wearing lilac robes hurried down the steps.
He came over to them, but all Jamie registered was that someone had approached them again. He spotted her staring fearfully and looked slightly surprised that she was conscious.
"N-no more," she whimpered. She closed her eyes. "No more. Please."
She felt her hand grabbed and then she was being squeezed from all sides. She bit back a cry of pain as the sensation aggravated her injuries, and she felt her brother flinch.
Then they got to wherever they were going as the feeling ended and they were lowered onto something soft. She forced her eyes open as she heard a gasp and a voice.
"Dumbledore, what-?"
"I will explain later. For now, help me heal them, Molly. They need it. Now."
The woman nodded and pointed a stick at her. Suddenly, bandages wrapped themselves around her and she felt cleansed of halfa blood. She stared uncomprehendingly at them with glazed, unfocused, pain-filled eyes, close to loosing consciousness.
"Their awake? That happened to them and they're still awake?" said the woman, distraught.
"So it seems. I can't imagine why. It is cruel, but it happened. All we can do now is help them recover."
Jamie had had enough by now. Too much strangeness. Too much pain. Too much horror. She shut her eyes again and let the darkness take her.
Right. I've set the scene. What do you think? Good? Bad? It will be less DP-centric in the future. Hopefully a little more focused on HP than most of my other stories, but certainly more centric than this. Advice on angst is much appreciated, because angst is not my best. Hope you liked it! R&R! Bye!
