Maybe it was false hope.

Her power was simply unchecked.

Dumbledore sat unflinching in his cushy and overly flamboyant Headmaster's chair as whirlpools of Iris' magic howled like the winds of a hurricane. Hurricane was an apt term for Iris' magic currently; the vortex crackled and thundered as they brushed against whatever ambient magic Hogwarts provided or the passive magic present in Dumbledore's many silvery contraptions, littered around his office, and created little sparks of magical light.

Iris didn't recognize any of them. Except, maybe, the sneakoscope. She noticed that because its desperate whining, ever fading, was present even underneath the rough tumbling of Iris' magic. The spinning top was rotating so fast that the centrifugal force was warping its very shape. Soon enough, the worn, frayed metal band snapped with a loud squeal, shot across the room and embedded itself in the stone wall. The whining stopped.

The previous headmasters' and headmistresses' portraits were screaming at Dumbledore to do something, but their voices went unheard in the thunderstorm raging in the office. The majority of them had evacuated to any other portrait frames they might have, within this school or out.

"Calm down, Iris. The portraits are terrified."

"Calm down?" Iris laughed lowly. "Calm down? You're telling me to calm down after you tell me I'm nothing more than a sacrificial lamb you've been raising to the slaughter?"

"You're not a sacrifice, I assure you-"

Iris' magic leaped out like an enraged beast in all directions, making Dumbledore flinch for the first time and the shattering glass windows tinkled down onto the grounds like snow. Iris, as furious as she was, had no intention of hurting her old headmaster. She too had committed atrocities. She couldn't help but form a smirk on her face as she realized that, ironically enough, after murdering seven people she'd approached Dumbledore's notion of the 'Greater Good' than she'd have ever realized.

"Don't lie to me," Iris said in a voice that carried razor-sharp steel but an underlying tone of exhaustion, of pleading, of wanting finality. "I would have died for my friends. I would have done so without a second thought. But you tore my friends away from me."

Dumbledore was extremely uncomfortable. Why shouldn't he be? Iris understood, partly. She was an Aztec sacrifice; chosen to be given to the Gods, to a greater power, such that it would bring health, security, and prosperity to the entire population. Dumbledore simply happened to be the cleric who was tasked with choosing one such virgin sacrifice.

"Why?"

Iris had tears in her eyes now.

"Why make me suffer? Why is it me?" Iris collapsed into her chair and covered her face. "Why can't I be happy? Does this prophecy only exist to make me want to die?"

"Even in all my years of knowledge and wisdom, that is something beyond me," Dumbledore said sadly. It wasn't false sympathy, either.

"Could you not have helped me?" Iris glared at Dumbledore through her fingers. "Why did you leave me with the Dursleys? Why couldn't I have been with… with you?" She choked. "Why couldn't you have trained me, given me knowledge? Given me the strength to defeat Voldemort? Do I not deserve happiness?"

Dumbledore didn't respond. However, he did allow himself a moment of relief as Iris' immense magical power shrunk back meekly into her flesh, trying their best to heal the wounds on the inside of Iris, nevermind that it was an impossible task.

"How can I aid you, my dear?" Dumbledore asked quietly.

Iris continued to glare. "You can help me by never bothering me again."

And thus ended any measure of an amicable relationship between the student and headmaster. Both of them knew it, both of them lamented it, but both were too afraid to try and rebuild the smoldering ruin of a bridge between them.

"I understand." Dumbledore stood and, brushing past the weeping Iris Potter, left the room.

The portraits had not gotten over their terror and had not returned. It was a good thing, too, because the only thing the portraits were capable of doing at that point was berating Iris, which no doubt would have sent her into another fit of rage resulting in the utter and complete destruction of those portraits once and for all.

The only other occupant of the office was Fawkes, who after staring at Iris for a long time with a mixture of emotions in his observant black eyes, hopped off his perch and toward Iris. Iris' tears had long since dried, and she looked up from her shoes onto the bird. The bird cocked its head warily, examining her.

"You'd come so close to me?" Iris laughed softly, bitterly. "Even after what I've done?"

The bird fixed the girl with an intelligent stare, one that conveyed disappointment, deep sorrow, and at the same time, understanding. Iris wondered just how perceptive this bird was, whether it understood through reading minds or some other mystical ability.

"I had your wand, you know," Iris said bitterly. "I suppose it made sense, the way it didn't respond well to me in its last days. I'm sorry it was wasted on me."

Fawkes hopped closer, within Iris' reach now, but the girl made no move to touch him. Fawkes trilled quietly, only really meant for her ears. It was not optimistic, or even happy, but it was comforting. He shook his wings and Iris' eyes snapped up in amazement as a single, copper-colored feather fell onto her lap. The feather of a phoenix, freely offered.

"I…" Iris swallowed. "You're giving this to me?"

Fawkes trilled.

"Can I make a wand with it?"

He cocked his head again. If the bird had eyebrows, it would be raising it mockingly. As if to say, 'what else would you do? Eat it?'

"Why?"

Iris swore the bird simply… shrugged. She supposed animals, even magical ones likely capable of intelligent thought, had a tendency to rely more on their instinct than logic compared to humans. For which, she was both ashamed and thankful. Thankful because he'd accepted her for what she was. Ashamed because both of them were disappointed in whatever she was and they knew it.

But, it also provided a glimmer of hope. Perhaps she wasn't truly lost yet, Iris told herself. Perhaps the phoenix's instincts would prove correct.

Ordinarily, they might have, but Iris' fate wasn't as forgiving.

So, what had happened to her, Iris Polaris Potter, that landed her in this new world?

She sincerely didn't remember any events that led to her being deposited in front of the Veil. She remembered her history, just not the part regarding whatever had moved her across dimensions. Was she fighting someone, and hit by an obliviation somehow? Legilimency? Or was she simply concussed badly in the process of traveling through dimensions?

She also didn't really know this world, it seemed. It felt familiar, but there was a certain wrongness, or at least an unfamiliarity, at the back of her mind. Her presence here had already managed to change the course of events, it felt like. However, one thing was certain.

Voldemort was here.

Even from so far away, hidden away in Malfoy Manor under a nice collection of stealth wards (Voldemort apparently did not know of the Fidelius charm, and Iris doubted he trusted anyone enough anyway to cast one) she could smell the stench of his corrupted magic. The Horcruxes also remained intact. The war had not yet begun, but it would soon.

Iris had an opportunity to destroy Voldemort before things got out of hand. This brought a smile to her face.

But Voldemort wasn't going to be accessible for some time. After all, what he was doing was raising his army, currently. Reaching out to acromantulas, to giants. Using Lucius Malfoy's, and other pureblood idiots' money to gather supplies. Influencing politics, probably with a stake in the Prophet as well. Iris would have to spend the meantime damaging Voldemort's base.

Her first act would be to break into Azkaban, murder the convicted Death Eaters - Rookwood and the Lestrange brothers were particularly bothersome in her timeline - and kidnap one of the Lestranges. Could be Bellatrix or Rabastan or Rodolphus. She would prefer Rabastan, as he was the least insane of the three; Bellatrix was obviously insane, and her husband Rudolph would also have to be insane to an extent to be able to put up with that bitch. Least insane, meant most perceptible to her scare tactics and torture.

She stared at herself in Tonks' bathroom mirror. She'd decided that minor spells such as reparo wouldn't pick up on any magical radar, so she'd fixed it. She'd gone shopping earlier, transfiguring sheet paper to look like pound notes. She'd gotten herself some clothes, as well as supplies that one might be confused about.

In this new world, she needed every advantage she could get. Iris knew that well enough. Even with her explosive magical power and her training, Voldemort had been by far the most powerful opponent she'd ever fought, one who had almost bested her on more than one occasion. That meant she needed to be able to carry as many weapons as possible, and that meant she needed to be able to wield magic without her wands. That could be achieved either by mastering wandless magic - bound to take decades, if not longer - or embedding a wand into her arm.

She'd actually done this before, about eight years after the War. It'd been a rather spontaneous idea, in fact. Judging by how the Elder Wand continued to reappear after each attempt Iris made at snapping it and throwing it out, she'd come to the conclusion that the Elder Wand's magical properties were not limited by its physical form. Indeed, even when transfigured into a greatstaff, a sword, or even a frying pan, the Elder Wand did not lose its magical properties. So, she'd transfigured the wand to fit her forearm, and embedded it inside. She'd removed it eventually because it started causing her burning pains in her arm since the soft tissue was be chafed against the foreign instrument every time she used that arm.

Now, though, Voldemort was back and his demise took priority.

She could only do this because of the unique properties of the Elder Wand; she remembered well enough how her original holly wand had spluttered and died as a result of it being snapped. She wasn't going to risk changing the physical properties of her new holly wand. She pulled out a small box she'd nicked from behind the prescription counter at the pharmacist. She opened it and pulled out a foil-wrapped package of four small bottles and an equal number of small needles. She removed one of each and injected the morphine into her left arm, the arm she usually used to wield the Elder Wand.

She watched the liquid disappear, and once it did, she vanished the needle and bottle. She waited for a few minutes for the effects to kick in; the whole arm was getting numb. That was good. What she was going to do was very painful the first time she did it, and while Iris may be tolerant of pain considering her childhood and her adulthood, she wasn't a masochist. She shoved a mouthguard onto her teeth, chewed it experimentally, and went into the bathroom.

Then she took a black tactical knife she'd purchased that day, and held her left arm out on the sink, and pressed the tip down onto her arm. She still twitched from the pain and clenched her jaw hard enough that she felt her teeth might crack even through the mouthguard. The blade sunk a whole inch into her flesh, and with increasing pain, she sliced her arm open. She could feel herself getting woozy as the blood dripped into the sink and tumbled into the drain. Iris discarded the knife once she'd made a cut about nine inches in length, letting it drop into the sink. She grabbed a blood-replenishing potion, also store-bought, pried it open with her mouth and downed the foul substance as quickly as she could.

With a grunt, she slowly pushed the Elder Wand inside the wound. She should've taken another shot of morphine - or would that knock her out? She continued to shove the length of wood inside her arm with difficulty; her fingers spasmed in pain as the tip of the wand bumped against her wrist. Iris continued to push the wand into her arm. Her technique was rough and probably damaging to the tissue, but it couldn't be helped when her entire arm was having involuntary reactions to the pain.

Eventually, when the majority of the wand was settled inside her limb, Iris downed another blood-replenishing potion and picked up her Holly wand. She set about changing the shape of the wand, making it thin and layering it over her radius, the less exposed side of her arm, in a manner that matched the bone as closely as possible so the soft tissue around it would not be as irritated.

When that was done - thirty painstaking minutes and three blood-replenishing potions later - she closed the wound with murmurs of Vulnera Sanentur. The same healing spell used to fix Sectumsempra wounds. She gasped, feeling lightheaded, and were she not as agile as she were, she would have fallen forward and hit her head on the ceramic basin of the bathroom sink. She held herself steady as she vanished as much of the blood as possible, and let the water flow to drain away whatever else of it that she could. Blood could be used for a lot of obscure magic, and she wasn't going to let anyone get ahold of any of it.

Once she was all done, she stared at the newest scar on her collection, running parallel to the scar she'd gotten when she'd done it the first time. She pulled on one of Tonks' undershirts once she was clean, and wiped her holly wand down with an antibacterial wipe. She vanished this as well, once its purpose was fulfilled.

She then laid out all of her newest acquisitions from her morning shopping spree onto Tonks' bed. There were several sets of clothes, including underwear, several days' worth of microwave meals in case she had to hide in the wilderness again (these were easily cooked with magic), her two new knives (much better quality than post-war items), a heavy Glock and ammunition, as well as a shrunken trunk full of potions and dragonhide armor.

The dragonhide armor, to be as effective as her cloak and hood, would have to be stitched together with several sheets of carbon nanotube cloth and adorned with runes for all sorts of elemental and magical resistance. However, for a mission as mundane as infiltrating Azkaban, it would do well enough; there were so few human guards that incoming magic was hardly a problem.

Now, to prepare for the extraction of one of the Lestranges.

Of all the skills that Voldemort had, the most crucial one to his terrorist campaign was his knowledge of psychology. Sure, he didn't exactly have a Ph.D. from Oxford, but he ruled with fear and terror and knew all about it. He constructed himself as a superhuman figure, one that was invulnerable to attacks from mere mortals. All his generals wore masks that stripped them of any human features and therefore stripped them of their empathy. That would only inspire even more fear in their victims, as it meant their death would be certain. Fear, of course, meant loss of morale and will to fight.

While the Devil was a convincing persona, and one that Iris used frequently (mostly for her own amusement), there was a much more effective persona one could construct to inspire fear in their victims. The one entity that even the Devil feared; God. God was an almighty being that was omnipotent, and most importantly, directed the flow of the universe itself. Thus, defying God meant that one was defying the course of nature itself, which would, in turn, lead to a sense of not just fear, but guilt, doubt, and wrongness.

Playing God was difficult, but rewarding. Her glamours and illusions needed to be unbreakable, and more importantly, inhuman. She had to utilize the full scope of her imagination like she was a surrealist painter high on LSD, to create a divine figure recognizable and alien at the same time. She'd have time to think about it while she went on her little rescue mission. She'd need to transfigure a corpse to look like Rabastan. His straw mattress should do the job well enough.

Iris stepped outside of Tonks' home, cast a notice-me-not charm on herself, and apparated out of there.

Hermione chewed the inside of her cheek as she read the morning's Prophet.

While she wasn't strictly supposed to have overheard Headmaster Dumbledore and the Order's meetings, she'd just stuck around Fred and George as they tested their Extendable Ears and couldn't help listening in. Supposedly, a very powerful sorcerer had dropped out of the Veil yesterday. Since then, this mysterious figure - 'Archangel' as they were called - had bested a team of Unspeakables, the combined power of Kingsley and Tonks, cast a Fidelius on their very identity.

Hermione knew by Archangel's reaction to the two Aurors' presence, that they were not antagonistic towards them. Meaning, it was entirely possible that Archangel was on their side. But if they were, then they were the light side's equivalent of Fenrir Greyback, for all the damage they did. She wondered if anyone else suspected Archangel was the cause of today's early-morning Azkaban rampage.

Law enforcement officials didn't have much to say, but they found inmates cowering, from the figure itself or the fiendfyre they released they didn't know. Twelve convicted Death Eaters were burned to death, it seemed. Bellatrix Lestrange, in particular, showed signs of torture and mutilation before her death; while every other corpse was a mess of glassy, half-melted bones, Bellatrix Lestrange's corpse was thoroughly damaged, and there was evidence that all bones below the knees or elbows were shattered with a blunt instrument, likely a hammer.

Hermione shivered.

"Terrible business, isn't it?" Ginny said, reading over Hermione's shoulder.

"I say good riddance," Harry muttered.

"Harry! It's one thing to kill someone," Hermione hesitated. "And another thing to torture your victims before killing them in the most painful way possible."

"Why shouldn't they get a taste of their own medicine? From what I know, Neville's parents were held under the Cruciatus curse for over fifteen minutes each until their nervous system was irreversibly damaged."

Hermione chewed her lip. "And how would it make you feel to stoop as low as them?"

"I couldn't care less," Harry scoffed. This was not the direction Hermione wanted him to go. "They deserve it."

"How do you think they got into Azkaban?" Hermione asked, trying to change the topic. "Same way Sirius got out, do you think?"

"Or they could cast one hell of a Patronus," Ginny said. Hermione glared at her for her choice of language.

It was at that moment that their conversation at the kitchen table was interrupted by an ethereal lynx. The cat dashed past the three students and paused in front of Albus Dumbledore, the only person other than Hermione to be frowning at the day's newspaper. Dumbledore looked up as the lynx began to speak in Kingsley's rich voice, one that was generally pleasant to hear, but his tone seemed to indicate both fear and disgust.

"Rabastan Lestrange's… body has reappeared in his original Azkaban cell. I have no idea how he was slipped past the extra security. He's not dead, but he is braindead. Shows extensive signs of torture. Even in the entirety of my Auror career, this has to be one of the most gruesome scenes I've ever come across."

Dumbledore stood up and went to the window, where almost immediately an owl - owned by the Order - perched on the windowsill. He opened the window and grimly unwrapped the envelope holding whatever information Kingsley and Tonks had managed to scrounge up from the scene of the crime. He gave the owl a few treats before settling down on his chair again and removing the contents.

"May I see?" Remus asked. Dumbledore nodded as he removed a couple of photographs from the envelope. Both their eyes widened. Remus turned around and retched into the sink, to Mrs. Weasley's shock.

"Professor Lupin!" Harry exclaimed, standing up and crossing the room to Dumbledore. It was possible the Headmaster would reprimand Harry for looking at confidential information, but whatever it was, it had him so shocked that he didn't register Harry's presence. Harry and Mrs. Weasley both peeked. The latter gasped and covered her eyes, spinning around and pretending she never saw anything. Hermione had never actually seen someone's 'blood drain from their face', but Harry's unnatural paling provided a new reference.

"Don't look," Harry said in a gurgling voice. Obviously, this piqued Ginny and Hermione's curiosity and they came, Remus, who had finished retching, tried to wave them away but that didn't stop them. Ginny shrieked in horror. Hermione felt her heart plummet through her stomach and into her feet.

The photograph showed what might as well be a corpse. Kingsley had said Lestrange was only braindead, but the fact that this person was still alive while suffering this badly made it even worse.

"Who the hell are you?" Rabastan Lestrange wheezed.

He had, after all, been dragged through about five miles of water by a man who could somehow walk on top of it. The man wore an immaculate black suit of Muggle origin, though the fabric seemed to be of an extremely fine magical material, likely acromantula silk. The black gloves he wore on his hands were made of the highest quality dragon-leather, and his ink-black shoes were polished until Rabastan could see his face in them.

"A lot of people know me," the man said simply. "Whether they choose to believe I exist, however, is a different matter entirely. I like to think that I exist. Or, perhaps, I am simply a manifestation of someone's imagination."

"Are you…" Rabastan hesitated. "Are you a god?"

"Am I a god, or am I God?"

"Stop speaking in riddles, damn you!" Rabastan Lestrange spat. However, the man crouched down, and Rabastan felt fear as he saw the gloved hand before his face. They not-too-gently jabbed at Rabastan's bloody lips and he was immediately silenced.

Wandless magic. His eyes widened.

"I shall speak however I like," the man replied with a smug silkiness. "The world is much more fluid and complicated than you think. The reason you mortals will categorize anything and everything into fact and fiction is because you would not be able to handle the sheer volume of 'truth' with your pathetic little minds."

Rabastan struggled, but then found his body moving without his askance. His hands were pulled behind his back, and he was brought to a kneeling position, his head only staring at the polished shoes. Despite the fact that the ground was muddy, there wasn't a single speck of dirt on them - then his eyes widened when he realized that this thing was floating about half an inch off the ground.

"I don't usually spend more time down here than I need to," the man continued. "It's frankly a waste of my effort. While no time will have passed in my home, I could not care less about individual humans. However, I do require your blood, so I take some from you."

Rabastan struggled fruitlessly against his invisible bonds as the man crouched down and unstopped a small crystal vial. He sliced open Rabastan's cheek with naught but his gloved left index finger, and while Rabastan was forcibly silent on the outside, he was having a panic attack within. He wanted to scream in terror, he wanted to faint, but something prevented him from doing so.

"Excellent," the smooth voice said. He stoppered the little flask. "Now what? Despite what people think, I am a surprisingly compassionate being. I like mortals, on occasion. I like to watch them flourish. Your allegiance lies with those only interested in exterminating other mortals. That I do not approve." His breath, smelling like mint, landed on Rabastan's ear. "I am more than capable of taking back my children. I don't need you."

Rabastan somehow managed to break through the silencing effect with a whimper.

"Perhaps we should make an example of what happens to those who assume to ascend to my celestial level, hm?" The man pulled out a bottle made from who knew what from who knew where. "The Muggles you so love to look down on have some wonderful things, accomplished wonderful things. This, my friend, is called hydrofluoric acid. Usually used in chemistry. The bottle is another curious creation of theirs, made of a plastic called polyethylene terephthalate. It is contained within this rather flimsy-looking bottle because hydrofluoric acid is so corrosive it will eat through glass. PET and lead are two things that are capable of containing this substance."

The man unscrewed the bottle cap and wafted the acid under Rabastan's face; immediately, burning pain shot through his nose, throat, and eyes. Even the mere fumes were damaging; he wanted to scream, but he could not, although his mind was doing more than enough screaming to make up for the lack of screaming on the outside. There was a large portion of his brain that was screaming agony and a smaller but no less quiet part that was screaming we're going to die here, by this man's hand.

"Man?" The man spoke in an amused tone. "Don't you mean to say, by this being's hand?"

He leaned in. "I'm not one of you."

Rabastan briefly considered the merits and demerits of being held under the Cruciatus instead of having concentrate hydrofluoric acid splashed into one's face. He could feel his eyes melting, and his skin bubbling on the surface and peeling off. He had a distinct feeling that he was meant to be poisoned but this bastard was keeping him alive through magical means. He could briefly hear the laughter in the background.

"You would be correct, my friend," he purred.

Rabastan, even through the pain, realized that he could only hear this man so well because his voice was injected directly into his mind. Following that realization, Rabastan's consciousness was tugged out into a strange place, a strange place where the pain was dulled for a brief moment. This frightened Rabastan more than the pain; nothing good was coming for him.

"Aren't you on a roll today?" The slick voice said. That hated voice.

Rabastan turned and glared at the man. For the first time, Rabastan was able to get a look at the man's face that was more than a glimpse. He and the stranger were in a suburban Muggle neighborhood, the houses looking more or less identical except for size. The being was, as before, wearing his immaculate black suit. His face… he had neatly combed, but formal brown hair, cleanly-shaved face. There seemed to be nothing exactly standing out about him. He seemed to be… average.

"Well, if I weren't in disguise, your eyes would have burned out from the raw power I emit," the being smiled, though the smile didn't seem very humorous. He began to approach, walking silently for the soles of his shoes never touched the plain asphalt ground. "I wear this face to be forgettable. Who would remember me? But I know the faces of all. I know the face of your mother, your brother, the sister-in-law that you so love to fantasize raping in front of your brother." Rabastan cowered as the approaching being's voice lowered into a snarl. And he demonstrated; his face turned into a mirror image of a sneering Bellatrix. "Not that you'll be able to, anyway. While it wouldn't surprise me if you enjoyed desecrating corpses for sexual purposes, Bellatrix's corpse is so mangled that you wouldn't know where to stick your prick in."

"What do you want from me?" Rabastan demanded, but it more sounded like whining. "Why do you do this?"

"What do I want from you?" Bellatrix laughed. "What do you even have that I want? No, my friend, all you are is something for me to amuse myself with." Bellatrix smiled a feral smile, a smile that even the real Bellatrix had never performed, one that reminded Rabastan of a goblin's smile. "I want to see if I can break you. No, I want to see when I can break you, because I'm certain I can. I want to see you beg for mercy in front of all the filthy Muggles and Muggleborns that you killed. My friend, this neighborhood is inhabited solely by the victims of your extremist pureblood movement."

As if on cue, one of the doors opened. It was a middle-aged woman wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe. One of their Muggle victims, Rabastan realized. One of his very first. She picked up a newspaper that was at the door and smiled warmly at the being as she realized who it was (who was he?). Then, she recognized Rabastan in his Death Eater robes - though his mask was gone - and she glared with raw hatred, a hatred that could have fuelled a hundred Avada Kedavras had she any magic. She slammed the door closed.

"What…" Rabastan croaked, then the thing looked up, frowning.

"It appears it's going to rain," the thing said, as the iron-colored clouds gathered. Distantly, Rabastan heard thunder. The first few drops of water landed on the asphalt before him, creating little wet spots. One drop landed on Rabastan's robes and dissolved the fabric. His eyes widened.

"Oh dear," the thing spoke drolly. "Hydrofluoric acid again. Who would have thought?"

He disappeared.

Rabastan slammed his fists on the doors and begged to be let in. The robes melted into nothingness around his body and soon enough his body was being scorched by the pain again. The Muggle families glared at him the same way they might to a homeless bum and slammed the door in his face. Rabastan had murdered, tortured all of these people. It might be a while yet until he was ever given shelter.

Rabastan screamed and cried and pleaded, but he received nothing but hostile confrontations. Once he was shot from point-blank with a shotgun after he tried to force his way into a Muggle household. The furious words of "and don't come back ever again!" followed him as he was blasted backward. He hardly registered the pain, not when all of his skin was on fire. The magical households would cast knockback jinxes at him, watching in grim satisfaction as he was yet again drowned in pain. They closed their doors and returned to whatever happy family thing they were doing as if they couldn't hear him scream. Perhaps they couldn't. Maybe it was magically sound-proofed.

He cried out in pain and terror and misery. He needed this to end. It had been more than ten minutes since it had started raining and he was no longer certain if even the Dark Lord could simulate this kind of pain. He begged any passersby to help him, as he tried to crawl to every house. He even begged for this - God - to come rescue him. But as surely as this God had put him here, the God didn't come back.

Seven hours later.

Tonks had just sent an owl to Dumbledore with photographs of Rabastan Lestrange's corpse. This sort of information, frankly, should be kept quiet, but Kingsley was certain it would be leaked to the media somehow. A story as violent as this was good for stirring up drama.

His partner was in the restroom, re-experiencing her breakfast in its entirety, and Amelia Bones had to be escorted out of the room on the arms of two of her veteran Aurors lest she faint right there on the spot. Indeed, the only one who didn't seem to be affected too badly was Mad-Eye. He'd probably seen a few things similar to this during his career, but he had clearly stated to Kingsley, nothing on this scale.

Lestrange's corpse was covered in third-degree burns. All over. He'd had the usual torture routines done - his bones broken, his teeth and fingernails pulled, his genitals castrated. However, the torturer had somehow managed to give Lestrange third-degree burns all over his body without killing him, either through blood loss or infection. But that wasn't the most frightening part.

The most frightening part was the way the burlap sack covering Lestrange's head was seeping with blood where there used to be eyes and a mouth, making it look like a grotesque smiley-face a child might draw with crayons, and his arms and legs were held up in odd angles. Tendons had been torn out of Lestrange's arms and legs and then elongated and attached to the roof using a sticking charm, making him look like a puppet of nightmares. The message was clear, especially combined with the little humorous note on the wall written in Lestrange's own blood: 'Honest, guv, I was under the Imperius!'

There was also a big '10' etched into what used to be his groin. Nobody knew what that meant, but Kingsley had the suspicion that it was meant to be an ominous countdown. He sincerely hoped he wasn't right, considering nine more repulsively ugly murders had to occur before reaching zero.

While everyone was distracted by this grisly murder, nobody noticed a young woman slip into Gringotts that day. To those that overheard, she was a bastard child of Rabastan Lestrange and now that the Lestranges were gone, wished to claim her inheritance. She pricked her thumb on the goblin-knife and successfully proved she was of relation to the Lestranges. She destroyed all cursed objects inside. Then she took everything - the gold, the Lestrange family grimoires, and Hufflepuff's chalice.