"Y'know, Madam Udonta, my mom... my mom wanted to be a mountaineer, that was her goal in life. That she'd one day beat the Mount Everest. She ended up whelping me, she ended up being a house wife. Sometimes she'd take me with her climbing nearby hills. I hated climbing back then- everything looked so big to a 7 years old- worried we'd fall down and die. And she'd calm me, and she'd say 'Don't look down, Peeta. Never look down.' See, she wanted me to take interest in mountain climbing. Her fantasy was that I'd become a mountain climber some day and take her with me climbing mountains. Mother and daughter, climbing the Everest together. Heh. Hell, maybe it'd have even come true, maybe, not entirely impossible in a world like this, maybe if cancer hadn't killed her first."
...
"Miss Quill."
Peeta was holding a black pouch, looking at it.
"Miss Quill."
It belonged to her mother. Now it did to her.
"MISS PEETA QUILL." Professor Stakar yelled.
Peeta looked up. The professor looked angry, giving her the death glare. The whole class was looking at her.
"Did you catch a single word of what I said in the last 20 minutes, Ms Quill?"
Peeta stood up and ignoring the question, said "I will show the class something today, Professor."
Professor Stakar wasn't expecting that. Peeta took her pouch and walked to the front of the room before he could say anything.
She cleared her throat. "Y'all, all of you, look at me, look at my pouch." She could feel the awkward energy in the room. She cleared her throat again. She stared straight ahead and held the pouch around her waist, out of her field of view. She opened the pouch without looking at it. Felt around inside it with her hands for the optic nerves of the eyeballs and when she found them, she grabbed the eyeballs by the nerves and brought them out, carefully, just out of her field of view.
"Don't look down, Peeta." her mother used to tell her, "Never look down."
She looked on as their eyes melted inside their skull. They never even realized what was happening- her classmates and Professor Stakar. There was no scream of pain and agony. A single sound didn't escape their mouth. There was simply the sizzling noise of eyeballs melting and the thump of their bodies hitting the desk in front of them. And the stink of it, like Styrofoam and plastic mixed together, burning.
And just like that, Peeta Quill was the single living being standing in the room.
...
"Minutes before my mother died, I was listening to I'm Not In Love by 10cc on my walkman. It's a great song. You should try looking it up someday. Wizarding music mostly sucks compared to the muggle ones. The walkman was a gift from her, my mom. I tried bringing it with me here in Hogwarts but it went haywire thanks to all the magic. Was never able to fix it.'
"Didn't the Hogwarts latter warn you about that?"
"No. Does it usually?"
"I'm... not sure. It should."
"Anyway, I was listening to the song when my dad came and told me that my mom wanted to talk to me. I was sitting outside her cabin, cancer made her ugly and her ugliness used to scare me. I still went inside the room. There was a stink in the room, like all sorts of excrement mixed together, I don't know if that's what it actually was. And she was looking uglier than she ever did. She looked... she looked half-digested, laying on her bed, like the bed was a monster that swallowed her and then vomited her back and was trying to swallow her again. There was flies sitting on her bald head and face and my grandpa was trying to wave them away. My mom brought out her thin hand with her thin fingers out of the blanket and motioned me to come near her. I didn't want to. Dad pretty much pushed me toward her. She smiled at me and her teeth was yellow. She said, I can't, well, I can't quote her, but she told me to hold her hand and I shook my head. Her hand looked like it was rotting away, I was sure her skin would come off if I even touched it. Dad pleaded me to hold her hand, and she told him not to force me and she smiled at me and looked at me like I was the most wonderful thing in the whole damn universe and her eyes were the only thing in her entire body that didn't look like it was dying and it broke my heart and I still couldn't bring myself to hold her hand. And she looked at me like that, like I was this baby miracle, even tho I was a brat who wouldn't hold her mother's hand at her last moments, even tho I was disgusted by how she looked, she looked at me like I was the best thing to happen to her and then she died, just like that. But the look on her eyes didn't go away. I didn't even realize she died before the monitor with the line, you know, the monitor with the line monitoring heartbeat or pulse or whatever?"
"No."
"I didn't realize she was dead until I looked at the monitor with the line and the line was straight. I ran out of the room, I ran out of the hospital. My grandad went running after me. I just... I wanted to run away from everything, you know. I wanted to run away from earth itself. I wished a spaceship would come and just beam me away. You know what a spaceship is?"
"No."
"Well, no spaceship came that night. But a year later, one year later a owl dropped a letter in our house. Apparently, I was a mudblood. Apparently, I was a witch.
...
Peeta walked down the corridor staring straight ahead without looking down at her hands. The thick optic nerves of the basilisk's eyes were slippery against them. It was disgusting. But when you get your hands dirty, you get your hands dirty.
She could hear a bunch of students approaching her way. She simply closed her eyes and raised her hands above her head.
Sizzle, melted the eyes and thump, fell the bodies.
Sizzle. Thump. Sizzle. Thump. And she kept walking with her eyes closed.
Sizzle. Thump. Sizzle. Thump. And she kept walking with her eyes closed.
Sizzle. Thump. Sizzle. Thump. And her feet got dangled with a dead body and she fell down on the floor. She accidentally let go of the eyes for a moment. Panicking, she frantically searched around for them without opening her eyes. Her hands touched the slimy molten eyes of a student before finding them back. She picked herself up. And again started walking. Sizzle-thumping her way to the hospital wing.
...
"It was on my third grade when I found it. The magical cure. Cures. There was more than 10 spells and potions listed that could cure all kinds of cancer. Can you believe that? A swish and flick of a wand and boom, your mother isn't a villain from a horror movie anymore. Countless muggles dying of AIDS and cancer and a book for a third grader had the cures to all that. For the wizarding community, cancer was nothing more than a nuisance. It was like getting a cold for them or something. I... it's just... can you believe that? I mean, of course you can. Me, I couldn't. If my mom just fought through 4 more years, I could've actually cured her. She'd actually been alive. That kind of knowledge... damn. I was already a depressed little... that didn't, y'know, that didn't help."
"Is that why you tried to... why you..."
"Tried to drown myself in the great lake? Pretty much. You know what my first thought was after they had rescued and brought me back to consciousness? That they wouldn't have been able to brought me back at that stage if they were muggles. If they didn't have magic."
"Peeta... Peeta, I'm really glad that you finally reached out for help. I... I'm, I'm always here, I mean, for you, I'm always... if you ever..."
"No. Oh, no. I'm way past suicide attempts. And I'm way past your help. I didn't come here for that, no. I came here to you, to let you know, that everything that happened here today, every single thing that I did, it was all the wizarding community's fault and especially your fault, healers like you, every single one of you, are guilty."
"Peeta, what did you do?"
"You could save countless lives, countless lives on your goddamn lunch break. You could swish your wand and wipe away all kinds of muggle illness. You could help the muggle scientists discover the cure to cancer without them even realizing it, you could stop wars and famines, you could stop city destroying earthquakes from ever happening. You could do all that and more but you don't because... because. Maybe you are too lazy or don't give enough of a crap or simply are just incompetent. Either way, the great power this community wields, it doesn't deserve any of it. Wizards only ever harmed the muggle community. From pranking them with crap like shrinking keys -and they have time enough to pathetically prank them instead of all the positive things they could do- to stealing their goddamn rail tracks to turning them into animals for the lulz to straight up murdering them by the masses. Well, not to sound too much like a saint or something myself but yeah."
"Peeta, what have you done?"
"You'll find out soon enough. Real soon. You know, it was so easy. So, so, easy. Making a basilisk. Unbelievably easy. The hardest part was actually gouging its eyes out. That was a little tricky."
"Peeta, for god's sake, what have you done?"
"I've only just let all my rage out, Madam Udonta."
...
The hospital beds were all empty except one. Owned by Matt Murdock, the quidditch team captain of her house. His eyes and pretty much most the body was bandaged. A bludger hit him in the face yesterday and he fell straight off his broomstick and hit the ground. It happened all too quickly, no one had the time to even raise their wands to stop his fall. The most seriously injured quidditch player in 12 years, he was blinded and completely paralyzed.
He'll be good as new in about 4 days at most.
These injuries were nothing to the wizards. Hell, they could probably reinvent the sorcerer's stone if they actually tried hard enough, they could conquer death, they could be immortals.
She walked near his bed.
"Is someone there?" he asked.
"Do you know where Madam Udonta is?"
"I'm pretty sure she's in her office right now. It's joined to this room."
"Oh", Peeta closed her own eyes and dangled the basilisk's above his face, "How you been healing up, Matt?"
"Still blind. Legs and hands and spine still broken. Will take about a week. Do I know you?"
She put the eyes back in the pouch, "Peeta Quill."
"Ah, I can't, sorry, recognize you right now. Am all doped up in potions."
"Y'know, Peeta Quill. The odd Hufflepuff out. Unfriendly, creepy girl with cut marks all over her hands. Suicide girl. We're housemates."
"Oh. Oh, hai, Peeta. Do you... uh... you came here for something important? Or just friendly gossip and you know..."
"I came here to talk with Madam Udonta."
"Oh yeah, right. She's just in her office. The office is adjoined with this room most of the time. Is it right now? I am still all blind and stuff."
"But not mute."
"What?"
"Silencio."
Matt said something but no sound came out. He couldn't speak and she couldn't lipread.
She ripped his blindfold off. He screamed. And his scream was silent. His eyes looked okay, a bit swollen but they didn't look blind. She took her wand and shoved it into his right eye. He tried to move his hands and legs, tried to stop her, tried to thrash around, his body only vibrated slightly with all that effort. It was comical. She wrung the wand out of his right eye-socket and shoved it down the left one. Only then he looked blind, proper and right.
Matt with his mouth open, attempting to scream, looked like he was giving a blowjob to an invisible man. She took her black pouch and forced it in his mouth. The pouch wasn't zipped, the eyes rolled out inside his mouth. He tried shaking his head and using his tongue to spit them back before it was too late. She twisted her wand out of his eye and used it to shove the pouch and the eyes down his throat.
He kept vibrating comically. She left him like that, wondering what'll kill him first. Will he die of bloodloss? Will he suffocate on the pouch? Will the poison of the eyes kill him?
She knocked on the open door of Madam Udonta's office, "Ma'am? May I come in? I need to talk to someone. I need to talk to you."
Madam Udonta was working on some papers, she looked up with concern. There was something in Peeta's voice.
"Sure, Peeta. Sit down." she pointed at the chair in front of her desk.
Peeta took the seat and started without delay, someone will find everything out soon enough, "I..." Peeta sighed, "I want to tell you about my mother. Y'know, Madam Udonta, my mom... my mom wanted to be a mountaineer, that was her goal in life. That she'd one day beat the Mount Everest."