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Chapter Eight

"And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee." Deuteronomy 30:7

NB - The events described in this chapter are based on accounts of medical experiments undertaken by the Nazis during WWII. It was sourced from various web sites and where accounts have been lifted nearly word for word, it has been acknowledged.

Hermione decided to take a week off work to do some private research of her own. Her team was perfectly capable of teaching the new charms to the Aurors and showing them how to use the new potion. There were some gaps in her knowledge of what happened 10 years ago and she had been putting off having them filled for a long time. The mere thought of what she had to do made her feel sick to her stomach but she knew she'd have to face it sooner or later.

In the weeks and months after Voldemort's last defeat, she had been a regular visitor to the wizarding hospital where Voldemort's victims had been recuperating. She had never asked them about their experiences and they had never volunteered to talk about it either.

Hermione did not believe in sweeping tragedy under the rug but rather believed that it could be redeemed via valuable lessons being learned from it. At the time, both she and the victims had been so traumatized that she had left it to the wizard psychologists and counselors to help them cope with the memories and suffering. Now, she needed their help to understand what Voldemort's goals and objectives had been. It may give her some clues about how to approach his current re-emergence and to develop strategies for the Aurors to use in the battle that would surely ensue.

Because she had spent time with the victims all those years ago, most trusted her to agree to see her. Some refused when she explained why she wished to make contact with them again and she understood why. Fortunately, there had not been a great many victims at that stage as Voldemort was still in the early stages of his campaign when he had been crushed by Severus' actions that night on the moors. Around a dozen or so of them agreed to meet with her over the following week.

Hermione prepared some penseives to use to store the memories in. The information they provided would be more accurate than what the victim's conscious mind allowed them to remember. Hermione could bypass their conscious and take memories direct from the subconscious although the interviews themselves would provide the interpretation for what the penseives would show.

She didn't tell Severus what she was doing because she knew it would just upset him again. Any mention of that night on the moors made him look ill and she couldn't bear that look on his face.

Her first interview was harrowing. All the victims were men of Muggle parentage although Hermione had no doubt that once Voldemort had started expanding his operation, anyone with Muggle blood would have been taken including herself. The man was now in his late 40s and was well-educated and articulate.

"It started with twisted ideas of ``racial hygiene'' espoused by Voldemort himself, of course. Those theories gave the Death Eaters scientific justification for eventual forced sterilization and ``euthanasia'' - the killing of the retarded, handicapped and others deemed a burden on the wizarding gene pool. This would happen after Voldemort seized power, of course" the man said in a neutral tone, his eyes empty.

"He was completely open about his intentions?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"Oh yes. He did not consider that he may be defeated a second time nor that we would ever have the opportunity to tell the story," he replied with frightening blankness. "He expected us to be dead in very short order and if you hadn't found us when you did, we would have been."

"When the Death Eaters set up the camp that you found, Voldemort's researchers had plans to receive organs of camp victims used as Muggle wizard guinea pigs. The Death Eaters hoped the research would lead to medical advances that would help them build a master wizarding race," he explained, his eyes lowered.

*"The 'pure' wizarding race was the most important goal of the Death Eaters. It was the largest part of the over all plan. These super wizards were to be the only race. The Muggle born that did not meet the race requirements were to by cleansed from society through genocide - that was the eventual goal. Voldemort and his inner circle made a list of rules for Death Eaters to follow. The new rules required all Death Eaters before marriage must submit to general testing to insure racial purity. The rules for marriage were unbelievably complex. If the laws for marriage were broken it would mean the death penalty," he continued, his voice halting.

"He told you everything, didn't he?" Hermione said broodingly. "I wonder why," she mused aloud.

"I think he enjoyed terrorizing us with visions of a future without us. He hated us - anyone with Muggle blood. I think he was so obsessed with the idea that it was all he thought of and all he spoke of. He felt he had no reason to fear us, so he shared his obsession with us freely and enjoyed the cruelty of it. He enjoyed making us feel helpless and despairing," the man observed without any inflection in his tone to indicate his feelings on the matter.

Hermione nodded and sighed deeply. The man submitted without comment to her trapping his memories in the penseive but refused to look at them. "I don't need reminding," he said grimly - the first emotion he had shown. The second interview that afternoon was worse. This man had only been a teenager at the time he had been abducted and suffered in Voldemort's camp.

"Voldemort was trying to determine if there were any physical differences between Muggle born wizards and those without Muggle genes," the next victim explained, his hands shaking as he lifted a cup of tea to his lips inbetween puffs on a cigarette. "He took a lot of our blood and did some strange experiments on it using various charms and potions. Some of us were close to death from blood loss alone. He made others drink vile potions that made them very sick under the pretext of testing whether our reactions to the substances were any different from those without Muggle genes. Of course, we never saw any of Voldemort's precious 'pure blood' Death Eaters drink the stuff so I have no idea how he could make any comparisons. Some of us vomited so violently after drinking it that we must have torn the lining of our stomachs because we were bringing up blood."

Hermione rubbed her face with one hand. It was worse that she'd anticipated.

"Others were made to drink cultures that contained live bacteria and viruses of both wizarding and Muggle diseases. Apparently they wanted to find out if Muggle borns showed different symptoms to pure bloods when they contracted these diseases," he continued nervously, lighting another cigarette immediately after putting out the last one.

"What was he trying to prove?" Hermione asked in bewilderment, shaking her head.

"That Muggle borns are inherently inferior, of course," the man said with a shrug.

Once again, the younger man refused to look at the memories in the penseive. "They already keep me awake at night," he said dryly. "I don't need to see them in the daytime too."

Hermione went home that night discouraged and not wanting to get up the next day to face the next three interviews.

The first two the next day repeated pretty much what she had heard the previous day but the third interviewee revealed some interesting new information. "They took a lot of measurements," the man in his fifties said pensively, staring out of the window of his one room flat in a dingy inner London suburb.

"Measurements?" Hermione said with a frown.

"Yes. They measured every part of our body and wrote it all down. Then they compared it to other charts," he explained.

"Charts?" Hermione probed.

"Charts of the Death Eaters' measurements. I think they were trying to find consistent physical differences between us and those who weren't Muggle born," he said, grimacing.

"Yes, I think that was their aim," Hermione said quietly.

The rest of the week provided further atrocious revelations. Some of the victims described having burning hot or icy cold fluid pumps into their bodies via various orifices. Others were suspended in freezing cold or nearly boiling hot water for days. Hermione learned that Voldemort was testing their endurance, probably hoping to discover some physical weakness amongst Muggle borns that he could use in developing a weapon to target Muggle borns into the future. They were burnt, cut, frozen, boiled, made to run until they collapsed on treadmills, made to breathe in various harmful gases, had things poked into their bodies - by the end of the week, Hermione felt emotionally battered.

* * *

When Hermione went to see Dumbledore about what she had learned, she took Severus with her and finally came clean about what she had really been doing all week when he had thought she was at work. As she had anticipated, the mere mention of that week in their lives made Severus look nauseous.

She took out the penseives that she had examined over the weekend in her study and gave them to Dumbledore for safe keeping. "I believe Voldemort had two aims," Hermione began, summarizing like the scholar that she was. "Firstly, he intended to find out if there were any physical differences between Muggle borns and pure-blood wizards. If there were, he would use this to spread propoganda about the Muggle borns' inferiority to the pure- bloods to engender support in the wizarding community for his own end objective of wiping out Muggle born wizards and witches. He would also use the information he gained to develop weapons against Muggle borns based on any deficiency or difference that he may have found."

Dumbledore nodded slowly while Severus still sat in shock at what Hermione had done without his knowledge. "I am sure you are right, Hermione and the information you have gathered is and will continue to be useful in our battle against Voldemort this time," Dumbledore said gravely.

"How will it be useful?" Severus challenged, getting up to pace with a flourish of his robes. "This is what Voldemort did in the past, it's of no help to us in finding out what he is up to now. You shouldn't have put yourself through that Hermione. Why dig all that up now when it's so far in the past?" he demanded harshly.

"We don't know whether it's going to be useful information to us in our present fight against Voldemort or not yet. It's too early to tell. However, it doesn't hurt to know all we can in case we are able to use it," Hermione said tightly.

"I think it just caused unnecessary anguish to the victims as well as yourself!" Severus argued, his black eyes glittering in the firelight.

"You're not a Muggle born, Mr pure-blood-I-can-trace-my-magical-roots-back- to-the-Moors-and-the-Scythians! You don't have quite the personal investment in these matters that I do!" she said, her voice so frigid and hard that even Dumbledore winced. "I very much doubt that his personal prejudices would have changed in these past 10 years, do you? If he does gain back any significant amount of his power - and it looks like he's well on his way to doing so - I don't want him attacking the Muggle born community again. Maybe by understanding how he went about it last time, we can find clues as to how to prevent him this time." She refused to look at him.

"And my point was that understanding what he did last time isn't going to necessarily be any predictor of how he will work this time. I don't want him attacking the Muggle borns either and I do happen to have a personal investment in that wish - seeing as my wife-to-be is one!" he said starkly, the lines on his face cut deeper than usual with tension. He looked very tired suddenly.

"I happen to think you're both right," Dumbledore said peacefully, wondering why they always chose his office to argue in. "Severus, I think your own fears for Hermione and the bad memories she has brought up for you have distorted your opinion on the value of the work she has done in the past week. Hermione, I think Severus is also right in that we can't make too many assumptions based on Voldemort's modus operandi last time either. We need to keep on our toes and keep an open mind. It's helpful to know how he was thinking before but he may have new aims that take precedence this time - like revenge, for example," he added pointedly.

Severus eyed the penseives on Dumbledore's desk with disfavour. He had seen enough when they had liberated the camp, he did not want to see anymore. He shuddered to think what Hermione had heard in the past week and what affect it must have had on her.

"Let's go home, Hermione," he said, in a gentler tone of voice.

She got up and stepped into the fire without a word.

* Sourced from www.remember.org/educate/medexp.html