August, 2017
Chapter 15: Hellfire
"There's nothing like a little physical pain to keep your mind off your emotional problems."
― John E. Sarno
It had begun with purple fire. She'd called for Ridgeway, for Edward and Mohinder, for Mason, for Kes. She'd tried to hurt the wizard who had killed Edward, who had tortured both Mason and Kestis, and more. Shattered glass shifted under her feet, and for a second, her eyes met his, blue and brown. Hazel must've run out of luck the third time. Before she could get any closer, before the witch could once more dodge the curse...there was nothing.
Nothing except burning, that is. Somewhere in her mind, Hazel realized that she laid, immobilized, on the marble floor of the Ministry. Somewhere, she knew her back was arching in pain and her throat would be rubbed raw with screams that didn't make a sound. Somewhere, there'd been the faint pull of magic tugging at her, a softer place to suffer in absolute agony.
She couldn't see anything, eyes squeezed shut as her body jerked and writhed on its own accord...She could, however, feel. Oh, Hazel felt everything that night...or day...or time. It felt endless, the burning. It had begun with purple flames, a massive 'x' across her chest that seemed to slowly incinerate each individual nerve, alighting her entire system with pain and heat and burning, eternal burning.
She'd seen how fire could kill, an inadvertent result of her childhood and curiosity about dragons; the first time she saw someone die, it'd been a dragon handler who'd gotten too close, too quickly. Orange tendrils licked around the scene, air filling with a nauseating scent...She'd been too shocked to cry, or react at all, really. In the end, the dragon had left nothing but ashes, a monotone graveyard, washed away by rain. It'd been the wizard's voice that haunted Hazel, though. At the time, the screams of a man burning alive had kept her up for weeks, months, just...echoing in her ears. Never truly leaving her. Now, she wished for such a fate; it seemed like bliss to be able to fade, to blow away in ash, free. Death could be an escape, but she hadn't realized she was trapped until it was too late.
Hazel was burning. There was magic, she thought, holding her down. Pinning her twisting limbs, silencing the sounds that tore from her, the mocking of a never-ending scream. Later, she'd be grateful for this; the witch wouldn't wish for anyone to hear what it felt like to be burnt alive, ripped apart, piece by piece, nerve by nerve. Slowly and systematically...destroying from the inside out.
Something strange and cool suddenly moved through her veins, running up her arms. Maybe it would've been relief, but the surge of utter heat, too hot, burning had followed quickly behind. It seemed to remind her that she couldn't escape. It felt eternal. Fingers curled into soft material, muscles clenching and unclenching, burning. There was no peace for her, not here, not now. Somewhere in her mind, she wondered if this is what crucio felt like...how did they compare? Was there a way to compare? Hazel wasn't sure of much, anymore. Except for the burning, of course. Agony, lighting every muscle and tendon on fire, burning through her throat and chest and limbs, would it ever stop? Please, someone make it stop. Please, it was consuming her alive.
If it hadn't happened, she wouldn't have believed it possible; the pain grew worse, then better. Then much, much worse. Something, somewhere, had changed. There were the constant flames, the burning that had long since made its home in her veins and lungs, a fire with no smoke. Now, whenever that was, sharp stings across her chest sparked fresh cries, or so she assumed. Was she screaming, still? It was hard to tell. It felt as if someone was ripping off her skin, slowly pulling away burning flesh and blood and muscle. Was this help? Or was this the curse, a way to rekindle the burning that hadn't even stopped to begin with? After each strip, each bit of tearing, Hazel could've almost sworn that she felt...better, as if each movement removed a small bit of the curse, along with herself. Were they one and the same? She wondered, somewhere, if there was even a Hazel that would exist outside of this curse, or afterwards - if there was an afterwards.
Occasionally, she'd see flashes of violent purple, as if the vivid 'x' had been impressed upon her mind's eye as much as everywhere else. No escape, just pain, searing agony, she'd never known anything like this before, hadn't known, how could she? Make it stop, please, it didn't matter how, please, just make the pain stop. The flames seemed to consume her, body and mind and soul. Maybe it was burning through her magic, too. She'd be concerned if there was room for such things.
As time moved on, leaving her behind, Hazel was barely aware of the ripping, and the strange sensation of feeling exposed. It felt as if her chest was nothing but gleaming muscle; purple flames licked at the nerves, delighted at the opportunity for more pain, burning, an old friend by now. Something soft..? gripped her head, liquid dripping onto her tongue, into her open mouth.
Hazel wasn't sure when, but the flames seemed to dampen; her body trembled in the aftermath, throat aching like...nothing she could compare...but, but, but…Eventually, she'd find out it had been twelve hours. Twelve hours under Dolohov's curse. Twelve hours of Marcus Ridgeway physically removing fried, cursed flesh from her chest where the burning had been before phoenix tears tried to repair the damage. If you could call it that. Twelve hours felt like a lifetime, maybe more. Time hadn't been there, in that space, after all. But she'd escaped, and was strangely alive. That was what mattered. Eventually, she could move enough to swallow the countless potions herself, to move her head to look around the room that they'd placed her in. To see the newly grown skin on her chest….Hazel was free, living and breathing and not burning. Not anymore. Was this what relief felt like? She'd escaped...hadn't she?