Pity And Fear by Death Cab For Cutie
I have such envy for this stranger lying next to me
Who awakes in the night and slips out into the pre-dawn light
With no words, a clean escape, no promises or messes made
And chalks it all up to mistake, mistake, mistake
And there are no tears
Just pity and fear
No vast ravine
Right in between
A storm at sea the bow cracked and I was capsizing
And I sunk below where I swore I would never go
If you can't stand in place you can't tell there's walking away
From who remains, who stays, who stays, who stays
And there are no tears
Just pity and fear
No vast ravine
Right in between
Spare no tears
Just pity and fear
And I recall
The push more than the fall
The push more than the fall
WARNING: PROBABLY GRUESOME CHAPTER, SO I WOULD SAY M-RATED! AGAIN!
Interlude 04 – What To Teach?
1st February 1992, 8 pm, teacher's longue, 4th meeting
Once again Undertaker, his friends and the rest of the old people sat together in the teacher's longue. It had been decided, since only a few remained at Hogwarts during the winter break, that their monthly meeting on the 1st January 1992 would be cancelled. They would meet one month later. Not that it really mattered to anyone. They were mostly happy not to sit in another stupid meeting for hours to no end talking about Harry Potter's halfway decent homework, other students, Harry Potter's non-existent Quidditch skills, Binn's complete uselessness, Harry Potter's personal life, that all teachers wanted more money plus less hours and just a bit more about Harry Potter in general.
Sev had returned to Spinner's End for the calm and student-free atmosphere, Sybill remained in her tower prophesying a few more impossible and improbable deaths, Undertaker went home, renovated Wonderland a bit and had many tea parties with everyone down there and most other teachers had a family at home and remained with them for the holidays. Only Dumbledore -must stalk Harry Potter the fake the whole time like some kind of pedophile-, Quirrell -must continue to stutter, since I am the Dark Stutter Lord-, McGonagall -must finish all this paperwork Dumbledore left over, that bastard-, Filch -must find bad aka naughty students out of bed and punish them-, Price -must not let anyone touch my books and play being a harpy-, Hagrid -must look after my extremely dangerous animals, which I keep hidden from the world and could possible eat a student-, Pomfrey -must remain here if some idiots injure themselves and need help- and that probably was it.
And now they were once again here reading parts from his lessons aloud. This time he taught his students more about the religious side of muggles, obviously considered a harmless topic.
"The fear of death and the devil dominated the thinking of mankind since time immemorial. What can I expect in the afterlife? Where does my path lead? Spiritual assistance was promised by the church, but they also fanned the fires of hell. The fear of hell was in the Middle Ages a decisive factor of power. It led Crusaders into the Holy War and peaceful Christians on pilgrimages. It revolutionized scientific thinking and cost a fortune to simple believers.
Heaven, hell, purgatory – On the track of the devil
Great fear has gripped the people of Europe in the Middle Ages. The plague raged. Towns, villages, whole regions were depopulated. God's wrath came down on the sinful part of humanity or so the frightened people thought. And they also believed to know the reason for the great dying of mankind. God's judgment had finally come. So now one would see, can I stand before the Judge of the world? Can I get into the heavenly Paradise? Or will God punish me for my sins and send me with the rest of the damned to the eternal fires of hell?
Those people were relentlessly threatened by the Black Death. Never before did the coming of the Anti-Christ seem so close as it was foretold in the Book of Revelation (20:7-20:8 partly): "When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prisonand will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth."
Through the Black Death in the mid-14th century the whole order of things had basically collapsed. The mass deaths meant that people had not be able to give the dead proper burials anymore and that they could not find a priest, who would give the last rites, any longer. Even mass graves below the churches could not hold all corpses. One in three fell victim to the plague. God-fearing souls, who died in mortal terror and terrible agony with endless horror in their eyes.
Not only in the Holy Scriptures and in sermons, but also in all churches' altarpieces and mural paintings people even in their lifetime were shown, what exactly was to be expected for sinners after death. Hell. In all its vividness painted into gruesome details by medieval masters.
Of course we should not imagine that people have looked at the pictures like in todays museums like us. We look from a certain distance and say 'I like it' or 'I do not like it'. But we know, for example from evidence of the Reformation, that the people have viewed those pictures with great anxiety. That was also an object of this image; it should look as convincing as possible. I will stand in front of them trembling and say that I will go out of this church and not steal the money of my neighbors.
Do not sin, the pictures stated. The terrible reputation of hell was both a warning and a threat. Those, who do not understand the message, fell inevitably into the clutches of the king of hell, who ruled over the dark realm of the afterlife. The souls of poor sinners were his prey.
And the people of the Middle Ages feared nothing more than the so-called bad death, that means t if a person died suddenly and without spiritual help. A good death had no such terrors. Penitent, prepared, surrounded by family, friends and neighbors, in the certainty of a long life in heaven in the glory of God. Exactly like that they wanted to die.
But the plague brought many a bad death, because all those who died in the state of sin, were the devil's. Their way led down deep into the earth to him who is blacker than coal and hotter than one thousand hot burning fires. To a place of no return, to a prison without escape, to the vast spaces of eternal damnation, to this place where no mercy and forgiveness existed.
Just in the hour of death, so they thought, the decision would be made if the person would go to heaven or hell, but many did not know what to do or how to get a good death. So the Church gave the faithful death booklets, the Ars Moriendi (Latin for Art of Dying), they should provide relief through text and image and should help to withstand the assaults of the devil on their deathbed.
But not all religions threatened their believers with hell and torture in the afterlife like the one Christians feared. Even in Greek mythology, the journey to the Underworld led to a distant place of darkness. To them it was a place to lament, not to be tortured. The world of the living and the dead was separated by the river of forgetfulness, which the Greeks gave the name of Lethe. The deceased had to pay for the passage into the afterlife a small contribution, the Charon's penny named after the dark ferryman of the afterlife. The bereaved often buried their dead with gold coins as a fare. At the end of the crossing of the river of forgetfulness waited for the tortured souls not a place of eternal damnation, but a dark shadow realm, the mythical Hades, the final resting place of the dead.
Even before the Greek mythology the Egyptians came up with the idea of the resurrection of the dead and their continued existence in a heavenly afterlife. They built their dead underground homes and palaces. Mummified them so that they could continue to live even after death. The road led them to the West, where the sun sets. Mummification was only the beginning of a long and perilous journey of the deceased. They followed the path of the sun, which went on every night of the solar barge through the realm of the dead to the next morning at which it will be reborn once again.
The enactment of a court, which judged the person's soul, was also known by the Egyptians. If there were more good deeds than sins, then the soul was saved…" Sprout trailed off.
"So I think the whole quite interesting. Maybe you have a couple of books on these topics that I could borrow?" Pomfrey asked him from the other side of the desk.
"Yeah, sure. No problem." Undertaker answered with a smile. It was not often that somebody liked the things he read or taught his students.
"Now that did not sound too bad. What is wrong with it? Normally we only do this when something was wrong." Pomfrey looked towards Sprout, whose lips were in a thin line.
"It was not really the topic, which was bad, but what followed a while later…"
"The cross, the symbol of Christianity, was once an execution tool that was already used under Alexander the Great. He brought it to Carthage from where it could have been taken over by the Romans later on."
"This of course is not really known." Undertaker interrupted.
"Today people can experience in the Philippines a disturbing journey. On Good Friday, Catholics flog themselves with a whip ("flagrum", consistent of several leather straps on which at times had small pieces of bone and metal attached to its ends) to the blood and then are nailed onto a cross. The ritual was created sometime in the early sixties. Those who are crucified here, show how deep their faith runs and seek a better fate for themselves and their family. For the participants, the ordeal they have to endure only for a few minutes is excruciating. Some of them feel so much pain; they have to be taken from the cross after just one minute. Although these crucifixions carried out more carefully than in the past and the agony those men must feel are indescribable."
"Sounds impossible? But is one hundred percent true. And quite masochistic."
"In ancient Rome the crucifixion was one of the cruelest forms of death there was.
What made the Roman Empire as strong as it was among other things a certain uniformity of urban structures. In every city there were baths, overnight accommodation for foreigners and a place for executions aka crucifixions. To each visitor and the townspeople themselves it symbolically demonstrated the power of Rome."
"Creepy."
"They also were part of the Roman propaganda. The message behind it was, "do not arise against Rome". People, who threatened the Roman order died on the cross even when they were only suspected. This method of execution was considered a threat to political opponents and the longer someone was hanging on the cross, the more effective it was.
The cross is one of the simplest execution devices. Its action is based on gravity and has a powerful symbolic force behind it. The executed man dies exposed, humiliated, in pain and visible for all people to see. The cross must face to the east, so that the crucified was all day in the blazing sun.
The Roman execution cross was about two-and-a-half meters high; one meter was in the ground. That post was called Stipes. The shorter arm of the cross named Partibulum and was placed through a simple wedged mortise and tenon joint on the Stipes.
This method of execution was made without any movement. After the condemned was fixed to the bar, it was only gravity, which led to his death.
First, the arms of the victim, which were fixed in a T-position, were tied to the bars. Wooden washers stabilized the long iron nails (17 centimeter long, 1 centimeter thick), which were then driven through the hands or wrists.
The Roman execution cross was shaped like a T, not like the Christian cross, and there was a practical reason for that. They had not nailed the condemned to the whole cross. Instead as the person was lying on the ground they were nailed to the crossbar. Then the Romans put the bar with the crucified person onto the vertical post.
The post remained at the place of execution and could be used for several crucifixions. Only the crossbar was replaced."
"Eco-friendly I say. Just use it for more than one."
"Scientists also found the answer to the question, where the nail had to be driven in so that the victim does not bleed to death immediately. It is the space between the radius and ulna, near the wrist, but the problem was that it could nick at this point an artery and the man would quickly bled to death. A quick death however was not really the goal. Therefore, the arms were tied to the crossbar and to increase the pain, the nails were driven through the person's hands. Without the ropes the person could have torn their hand by force or their weight and fall from the cross.
The most painful part of the crucifixion probably started after the nailing of the feet. This was less about the pain of the wounds but the gradual sinking of the body. The person choked on the cross to death. The midriff was compressed so much that the person could breathe in but could not breathe out.
In this position the chest muscles were slowly be paralyzed and the muscles underneath gradually became inactive. The crucified struggled to sit up and help the midriff operate again, but this movement stimulated the nerves and caused excruciating pain.
To the severe pain in both hands and feet, the breathing became harder and harder until the person died of asphyxiation and before death, they would also dehydrates, starve and have to withstand the elements like sun, rain and wild animals.
A crucifixion was so humiliating that the Romans usually spared their own countrymen from the same fate. It was a means of the state to control strangers.
After Jesus' death on the cross it turned into the symbol of Christianity."
"Why did you once again have to TEACH THE CHILDREN ABOUT FREAKING TORTURE INSTRUEMENTS?!" McGonagall yelled at him, but this time it was not even his fault.
"Why are you yelling at me? There is a logical explanation for this, you know and if you would use your head. So no prejudiced screaming at me until then, okay? Get your information right first."
"And why did you?" She asked impatiently. She really did not like her, well, the feeling was mutual.
"Two reason." He answered while holding two fingers up.
"We are listening." She said stomping her foot hard onto the ground irritably.
"It is the symbol of Christianity, the most important and well known. Everyone knows about it and Jesus' death." Undertaker informed them.
"They know about it being a torture instrument?" McGonagall looked surprised.
"They do. After all Jesus had died on it, so I would think they knew about it."
"What is the other reason?"
"The students wanted to know more about it."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, in the first month of the year we only had time to go over a few torture methods in detail, so I just made to some just a short explanation. I was not really out to teach them anything about that this time through, but they asked for more information on crucifixion and so I gave it to them. Simple as that."
"Okay. What did you teach them all in the last two months aside the things we just heard?"
"Well, the main religions in the muggle world and long time before, their believes, their symbols and their scripts, then Satanism and other cults, more about the plague that killed many people in the Middle Ages, and well, that is it." And a few torture devices of the church along the way…
"To me the whole thing sounds like a construction plan." Sybill said with a creepy smile, all teachers looked at him in silence.
"Was that planed?" McGonagall asked with a scowl.
"No, no, of course not." Damn Sybill. He send a death glare in her direction, she just mouthed back 'I love you too' while he saw Sev making bad-hidden gagging sounds. Would not it be nice? If everyone had a handy little cross somewhere in their garden for possible enemies and false friends? Or just to show off? It was a rather good idea…
AN: Well, another interlude. Just rewatched all the torture and religion documentaries I had and was motivated enough to write this little chapter. Hopefully it does not too many grammar errors and other mistakes. Hope you like it and review.