TRIGGER WARNING! There will be torture. I'm not very good at describing it, but I feel like I should mention it, or maybe not lol Last few chapters comments have been desperate to drag that woman through the coals so to speak. Anyway, heads up!
Also, this chapter is twice as long as usual, because the plot bunnies kept dragging it out, and I was not going to split this, so enjoy! ^_^
Last time...
"Your price?" Potter inquired, ducking her head low. "I am not so foolish as to think I could invoke you, and not incur one."
"Wise…Precious…Chosen…Price to be paid…Your price…take up the mantle."
"…The mantle?" Potter inquired, looking up to the cauldron. "I don't understand."
"Be what was denied…Take up the mantle…Be my Account…my god."
"I'm not…I…" Potter ducked her head again. "I don't deserve it. I'm not worthy of that."
"Potter, you literally just called an entity I can only assume is Magic to speak with you through a cauldron of blood, and you're going to tell it no?!" Severus scolded, hissing at her under his breath; never mind that the entity itself could no doubt hear him. Potter looked at him, eyes pleading, so he grabbed her shoulder to steady her. "We told you before that it was possible that you could be. All that is left now is for you to believe that it is. It is gift and burden both, but Magic would not give such a price if it did not think you capable or deserving."
Potter turned back to the cauldron, jaw trembling as she tried to muster up the ability to answer.
"...I accept."
When Dolores woke up, she had expected to see Potter once more. Instead she woke up screaming, the feeling of something cutting into her flesh from every angle. It felt almost like scrawling…like words were being written into her flesh. She screamed, calling out for help, but there was no answer. She tried to get out of the reach of whatever it was that was cutting into her, but to no avail.
When the cuttings stopped, Dolores was relieved. By then she'd understood what was happening, that somehow Potter had managed to return to her what she had done to others. Blood oozed from every wound, and there was a pulling feeling coming from her feet. Dolores looked down…or rather up…to see that her feet were tied up and bound to the ceiling. The air was thick with fumes that were no doubt poisonous, obviously coming from whatever sort of river that could hiss when blood dripped into it; she didn't want to know.
However, there was hope! Above her was a hole the size of a galleon on the roof of the earthly cave, just big enough to not let her choke on the fumes. It gave her a bit of clarity to see if she could get out of this situation. If she could get out, she could get back to Hogwarts, where that Potter girl had no doubt run back to in order to hide her crime! Belatedly, she realized there was a shovel strapped to her arm, and a note taped to her forehead. With the high pitched laughter she could also hear above her, Dolores didn't like her odds.
The Note?
Start digging.
Chapter 111
…If you can hear me….you are a Loki too…in one way or another…
…We have been trying to reach you…to reach any of us…
…We are being hunted…pruned…killed…
…We need your help…or you need to hide…Help us…or hide…
Hera, no matter how hard she tried, couldn't answer…
When Severus comes to, his office is a wreck. He's not where he was when the explosion hit, he knows that much. The cauldron and its contents are gone as if they had never been. His eyes land on Potter, who is crumpled in a heap against the far wall, and he saw that wisps of green and gold fire were lazily coming off of her. When he tried moving, the swimming in his head picked up speed. Severus realized moving was a bad idea, and chose to close his eyes in the hopes that the swimming feeling in his head would die down.
"Potter?"
Nothing.
"Potter!"
Again, nothing.
"POTTER!"
"…Pfsr?"
Close enough.
"Potter, you need to get up." He tried. Nothing. "Get up, Potter. You need to-"
"I'll help!" Potter shouted, standing up far too quickly and then crumpling right back into the floor like a sack of potatoes. "Where are you? I'll help! I'll help!"
"What are you on about, Potter?" Severus demanded, testing out opening his eyes for now; uncertain just what had happened to her while she'd been out.
She groaned, closing her eyes, resting her forehead on the floor. "You know anything about the Multiverse Theory?"
"I am aware." He replied dryly. If anything, Stark had been a bit too ecstatic to discuss scientific theories with someone who understood both the magical and non-magical world.
"Wade talked about it a lot, but I didn't really understand. I could imagine different universes, different realities, dimensions and the like, but understanding was…beyond me when it came to the multiverse." Potter rambled. "…I don't think it's going to be for much longer."
…What?
"Start making sense, Potter." He was not ashamed to admit there was a bit of a begging tone in there.
"That's just it. I don't think I can. I think you start making less sense once you get to this point, because when you see it all it all just makes so much sense!" She continued to ramble, forehead still pressed against the cool stone.
"What did you mean by 'I'll help!'?" Severus chose to focus on that instead of the swimming feeling his brain was still in. "Who were you trying to talk to just now?"
"They called me a Loki 'too', said they were trying to reach any of us, that we are being hunted…pruned…killed." Potter relayed. "If it wasn't some power fuelled fever dream, the multiverse is real, and Lokis all across the multiverse are calling out for help…or for the others to hide, but it's too much right now…I don't…I can't…"
"One war at a time, Potter." He reminded her, which made her snort; something she regretted if the groan that followed was anything to go by. "We get through whatever your plan is for Umbridge, whatever chaos that follows that, and then we can see if there's even a way for you to make contact with…whichever Loki spoke to you, before we figure out if helping across the multiverse is something you can do."
"You believe me?" Potter questioned, hesitantly sitting up. "Just like that?"
"Potter, I just watched you ascend to godhood and blow up my office." Severus reminded her. She looked a bit sheepish at that. "At this point, there's not much I wouldn't believe if you were the one to tell it. Still can't believe you tried to tell Magic no."
"I was in shock!" Potter defended, blushing in embarrassment. "Godhood is a lot of responsibility! I mean, do I look any kind of responsible to you?"
She did not. Eyes glowing green, wisps of green and gold magic fire still dancing on her skin, Hera Potter looked the epitome of recklessness. After all, the series of things she'd just done did not speak to those of rational person. She'd thrown Umbridge to the Goblin Kingdom, and buried her alive in the Underground, only to call on Magic to return the magic inflicted upon children under her protection to the woman who'd forced them into it. However, just because she was reckless did not mean she was irresponsible.
"Looks can be deceiving." He pointed out, instead of saying all of that. "Now, is there anything you can do about my brain swimming around in my skull? I'd like things to ease up, if it's all the same to you."
"Well, you did stand too close to the ascension of a god. It's going to affect you a bit." Potter replied with sass, finally managing to pull herself up off the floor. He rather envied that ability at the moment. She made her way over to him, and offered a hand. "Come on, we've got work to do."
"Sure, and then you can tell me how being an immortal unkillable god is suiting you." Severus remarked dryly, accepting her help all the same.
She only gave him an odd look. "Where did you get that from? Gods get killed all the time."
…
Hogwarts was in chaos. There was a great deal of shouting coming from somewhere above them; the entrance hall, if she had to guess. Without stopping to think about it, Hera rushed towards the sound, and found what looked like most of the school assembled there. Students were standing all around the walls in a great ring (though a few looked to be covered in something positively gross), all of them trying to tread lightly in the enormous swamp they found themselves in; teachers and ghosts mixed among the crowd. Prominent among the onlookers were members of the Inquisitorial Squad, who were all looking exceptionally pleased with themselves for some odd reason.
Peeves bobbed overhead, gazing down upon Fred and George with something akin to reverence. The two stood in the middle of the floor with the unmistakable look of two people who had just been cornered and yet didn't care. What no one seemed to realize was that the crowd was thinning…rapidly. Luna, Ron, Hermione, and Draco were making quick work of appearing behind people and then disappearing with them. Quite a few people were caught unawares when Hera and Snape turned up, until only the teachers, Hera, Fred, and George were left.
"Hera!" Ron exclaimed happily, appearing to the right of a set of knight armour. "You're back!"
"Wow, you're all…fire and glowing." Draco pointed out, having appeared not too far from Professor McGonagall. "Does it hurt?"
"No, it doesn't hurt." Hera mumbled, having not realized she was still giving off waves of excess magic. "It'll pass. It's just…a lot right now."
"Hera!" Hermione shouted excitedly. She'd popped in right next to another suit of armour, nearly knocking it over in her excitement. "Is this how you got around Madam Pince's wards around the Restricted Section? I can't wait to test that!…(It's only now that Hermione gets a good look at her that she pauses)…Erm…Hera?"
"You've fully accepted yourself, I see." Luna noted in her dreamy voice, having appeared next to Ron. She walked directly up to Hera, a knowing look in her eyes. "You know this means all of it, do you not?"
"…All of it?" Hera had a sinking suspicion what that meant.
"Yes. All of it. Everything he was. Everything he never got to be. All of it is yours now." Luna explained. While she made no sense to anyone else, she made far too much sense to Hera. "It won't leave him as quickly as it came to you, but-"
"I caused it." Hera realized, horrified. "His-"
"No." Luna scolded, as only she could. "His descent had already happened without you. You just changed the course."
Hera was lost in her own horror for a moment, but the Luna grabbed her by the shoulders as if to steady her.
"It's not your fault." Luna reiterated. "He chose to become you, just as you chose to take up his mantle in its entirety."
"She tried to tell Magic no." Snape revealed, disbelief colouring his voice.
"Only our Hera could get away with such a thing." Luna replied fondly, shaking her head.
"Not that I quite understand what's going on here, Miss Potter, but why are you covered in magical fire just now? It doesn't appear to be harming you or Miss. Lovegood, but I'm still concerned, mind you." Professor McGonagall inquired, though she looked around the now empty corridor as well. "I wouldn't mind knowing where the rest of the children have gone either."
Professor Flitwick had a sudden look of dawning realization, and his knees began to buckle.
"Don't you dare." Hera insisted, catching him by surprise. "You do, and this swamp will swallow you whole. You're half in it as it is."
"But you were…"
"Yes."
"And he was…"
"Yes."
"And now you're…"
"Also, yes." Hera responded. Professor Flitwick let out what could only be a repressed squeak, and Hera decided to go for broke. "Filius, please. You can freak out later all you like, but right now I need all the professors out of the halls. I don't care if you want to go to the Chamber of Secrets with the students, or to your classrooms, but you can't be here when Umbridge gets back."
"We're staying with you." Ron declared, the rest of her shield brethren nodding in agreement.
"I won't stop you, but I'd really rather you didn't." Hera admitted. Before they could take a breath to object, she clarified. "I want to kill her. You do realize that, don't you?"
"We're staying." Draco insisted, with a stubborn tilt to his jaw. Hera was not surprised to see the others following suit.
"So be it."
"Minerva, I know you want to intervene, but don't." Snape warned, made to take a step towards the woman, though he held his position.
"Intervene?" Professor McGonagall parroted in confusion, before shaking her head in indignation and looking to Hera. "While I don't think students should be participating in such things, I must also accept that you and your friends have had to face things no child should. You're all mature enough, I believe, to decide these things for yourselves. Please don't tell your families I said that."
Ron snorted, likely knowing the message was mainly for him, though Draco also gave a grimace within a grin at the thought of telling his parents.
"But no, I don't want to intervene. I want to disembowel that foul woman myself!" Professor McGonagall admitted emphatically. "Barring that, I want front row seats!"
"So bloodthirsty under that proper veneer." Hera teased, causing the woman to pink a little in the face. "Go to your office, Minny. Your…front row seat…will be waiting for you there. Oh, and take the other teachers with you. You can make an event of it. That means you too, Professor."
"I believe it does not." Snape replied, stern expression firmly set. "You have yet to be pinned for your Mastery, and I am responsible for you. I'm staying."
"Really? That's the argument you're going to hang your hat on?" Hera inquired with disbelief, even as she vaguely noted the other teachers both leaving and smiling oddly fond of the conversation they were leaving her in. "Magical fire is still wafting off my person because I had a conversation with Magic and blew up your office, and that's the argument you're gonna go with?"
He only arched an eyebrow at her, as if daring her to question it.
"Unbelievable." Hera snorted. She turned to Fred and George, who had stayed rather still in the shock that had settled over them. "Well? What's it to be, you two? You can stay with the students in the Chamber of Secrets – after all, I did promise you a tour – You could stay here, though I don't recommend that one, or you can be on your way. I know escaping with a dramatic flair was on your to do list."
"Can we not do all three?" Fred inquired, after a moment.
Hera tilted her head regarding them both. "What did the two of you have in mind?"
If Dolores had been asked before this, she could not have imagined such a horrible night. She'd actually had to dig herself out, while somehow not falling into the pit of…whatever that horrible smelling liquid had been. She'd managed it, all the while knowing that something awaited her once she made it out. There'd barely been a moment to breathe before she'd realized that her wand was in the hands of…little fairies of some sort. Except they'd wanted to play, and their idea of play was to take each others heads and toss them around; they'd become quite angry at her for wanting to keep her head firmly attached, and had attacked her immediately.
She'd managed to grab her wand and make a run for it, those foul little creatures chasing her all the while. In fact, there were quite a lot of things chasing her. Some waited in bushes or around corners, scaring her when she thought she was safe. No spell made contact with anything that could be considered a living creature, and the stone only repaired itself. Vines would trip her where they hadn't been moments before, rocks seemed to appear at random to do the same, and the walls themselves never seemed to be where she remembered them.
Goblins unlike any she had seen in Gringotts chased after her as they laughed like mad, shouting 'Chickens!' like it was their war cry. It was absolute madness, and behind them all was the Goblin King laughing at her. She'd seen him only once, but she hadn't needed eyes to know that he was there watching her as he enjoyed her pain and suffering. She stumbled into a wall that quickly gave way, somehow leading her back to Hogwarts. Howling reached her ears, and she began running with everything she had.
She chanced a look behind her and dearly wished she hadn't, as a wolf larger than any she'd ever seen before came sauntering out of the forest. If she hadn't been running before, she did then. Trips and falls, scraps and bruises, she endured it all in this last stretch in order to get to the castle. When she finally made it to the door, she still checked on the progress of the wolf. It was playing with her, she knew, and she hit the door forcefully when she couldn't seem to get it open by normal means. Thankfully, the door opened after she hit it a few times, and she bolted into the castle.
Only when she took stock of her new situation, she discovered she was not in any less danger than she'd been in outside. Potter's pet basilisk, and she was sure it had to be with how long that tail was, had just slipped out of sight. The more she looked around her, the more she saw. A swamp filled the entrance hall like it had taken root there! At least she was in the company of her fellow witches and wizards again. Wandering down the hallway on the opposite side of her, looking completely unhappy about his current situation, was Severus Snape.
"Severus! Severus!" She called out, falling and scraping her knee…again. "Wait!"
The man paused, frowned as he looked in her general direction, before shrugging and moving on. It was as if he hadn't seen or heard her. No! She couldn't still be in that other place. This was Hogwarts! She had to be back! But then she heard the laughter she'd been chased by this entire time, and suddenly she wasn't so sure anymore.
Peeves, the damned poltergeist, came soaring into the hall cackling madly, upending and toppling everything in his wake. She shouldn't have let her guard down, or taken that calming breath. Seeing her, he dove. She had to leap into the muck in order to escape, something that delighted the foul creature to no end if the cackling was any indication. She ran before she'd even registered what she was doing, and it was only when she'd looked back that she realized she'd only just been missed by the basilisk again.
What she ran into was a suspiciously dry room. There wasn't a bit of swamp water that didn't come from dripping off of her. Instead, the space resembled a kind of court room almost. There were seats for the witnesses, all empty. Further into the room was a platform resembling that of the Wizengamot. Behind it sat Potter and her friends, along with the Weasley Twins.
"You're late." Potter remarked, unamused, as if Dolores hadn't just endured the most terrifying and harrowing night of her life. "Bit unprofessional to be late to your own trial."
"Trial?!" Dolores shrieked in demand. "Under who's authority?! You're just a-"
"Magic gave me every authority to judge you!" Potter stood up, shouting over her. "Open your eyes, you dull creature, and recognize that you are in the presence of a god!"
For the first time, Dolores looked at the girl with eyes wide open. There was a sort of lazy magical fire drifting off of the girl's body, green bits mixed in with gold, and her eyes shown something unearthly. When she looked behind the girl, she saw the giant wolf and the basilisk had easily slipped into the room without so much as a sound. Both nestled down behind Potter, who leaned into the basilisk while also petting the wolf's fur. Her very presence exuded power.
"Loki." She whispered to herself, as a shiver of fear ran down her spine.
Dolores knew that this was not a trial she could win, not with the odds so stacked against her, not with what this girl now represented. This girl was a newly realized god of magic, and the imagery around her somehow resembled that of Loki far too closely for it to be a coincidence. The wolf and the basilisk were loyal to Potter, and everything Dolores had seen of the girl suggested a cunning and prankster like nature. What had her shivering with fear wasn't any of those things, but her obvious notice of how children seemed to flock to the young girl; Protector of Children, her mind whispered to her. If Potter echoed all of Loki's domains, that would surely be one of them.
Dolores' instinctual need to run kicked in, but it wasn't fast enough. Something caught her foot and tripped her, causing her to slam face first into floor. That hurt! Laughter filled the air, and none of it kind, not with the quick movement and scurrying of the things that had chased her flitting about the edges of her vision even still. Potter and her friends were talking amongst themselves, she noticed, once Dolores had collected herself enough to rise again.
"Dolores Jean Umbridge, you are being charged with the torturing of children. How do you plead?" Potter inquired, leaning onto the podium of the platform. "I mean, I know you're guilty, but I've always wanted to say that."
"WHAT?!" Dolores yelled angrily. "I will not be cowed by this…this farce of a court!"
She had her wand back, and she was damned well going to use it! She waved the wand around in a wide arch, eliminating the platform entirely, which destabilized Potter long enough for her to put the girl under wand point. The beasts and children all froze, looking confused and uncertain. That would do nicely. She'd deal with them too.
"You know…I really hate children." Dolores panted, taking a moment to revel in having the upper hand for once. "The Cruciatus Curse ought to be a suitable enough start to the punishment the Ministry decides to serve to you."
"Professor Umbridge, it's…That's illegal!" Granger objected.
"So was everything you and your little friends have done to me!" Dolores snapped. "So what if I harmed a child? They were being naughty and deserved to be punished! Someone had to do it!"
"The Minister wouldn't want you to break the law, Professor Umbridge!" Granger insisted, tears in her eyes.
"What Cornelius doesn't know won't hurt him." Dolores assured herself, drawing herself up. "Cruc-"
…
Hermione quickly leapt forward, and then?…
~Crack!~
Umbridge went down like a sack of potatoes.
"You should have let her at least finish casting, you know." Hera commented, looking innocent when Hermione glared at her as if daring her to say that again even as she helped her up. "What? It could have been used as evidence."
"I think it's interesting how many problems you and your friends seem to like solving with punches to the face," Snape commented, removing the disillusionment charm from himself. "all things considered."
"It's effective." Hermione shrugged, and picked up the woman's wand like it was offending her.
"So…What are we going to do with her?" Hera inquired, and the two looked at her in confusion. "What? I know what I wanna do, but this isn't about me."
"And what is it that you want to do to her?" Snape reposed, watching her now.
"What I want is to give that foul piece of flobberworm shite a Blood Eagle." Hera seethed, choosing to pace in an effort to get rid of pent up energy. "I want to take her magic from her, send it back to be cleansed before it re-enters the world once more. I want to leave her a drooling mess in St. Mungos. I want to rip her heart out, and show it to her as the life leaves her eyes. However, what I want might not be in the best interest of Magic or take into account those she has wronged."
She looked to see Fred and George standing off to the side.
"What would you have me do?" Hera asked them. "What punishment would you suggest she deserves?"
"You can regrow bones and mend flesh, can't you?" Fred offered after a moment.
Hera wasn't sure where he was going with this, but nodded.
"Then why not give a demonstration?" George added, completely serious, as he glared at Umbridge's prone form.
She closed her eyes as she considered. For Fred and George to suggest such a thing was unlike their normal trickster like natures. They wanted blood, and they were willing to cut that woman open to get it. Was this anger felt by the other children as well? She remembered the First Year that had come up to her in the Great Hall, he hadn't been alone.
"Torture only has a point if we plan on letting her live." Hera reminded them, opening her eyes once more. "Do we?"
"You can always drain her magic and dump her on St. Mungos after." Luna suggested, surprising them all.
"Have you always been this blood thirsty, and I just never noticed?" Ron wondered.
"Bit of a recent development, I'm afraid." Luna remarked, frowning, eyebrows furrowed as she gave the unconscious woman a light kick to the arm; doing nothing more than gently jostling the appendage.
"Do you want an out, Professor?" Hera inquired, looking to him now. "I won't fault you for it, if you do. You don't have to stay."
"No, I do not have to stay, but you will need at least one other set of experienced hands, and I highly doubt it would be a good idea for you to go cloning yourself now." Snape stated with a decisively pointed look at the end. Warning taken; no multiple copies of oneself to go running amok while acclimating to godhood.
"What about the rest of you?" Hera inquired, looking to the others. "You don't have to stay here if you don't want."
None of them said a word, even as groaning sounds came from Umbridge as she slowly regained consciousness.
"It looks like your time is up." Snape noted. "What have you decided, Potter? What will her punishment be?"
Hera looked to her friends once more, all of whom looked resolute.
"So be it." She resolved. A snap of her fingers – old habit now – and Umbridge was raised up in the air as if she were a marionette; if the woman wasn't fully awake before, she was now. "Dolores Jean Umbridge, you have been found guilty of your crimes. You have been sentenced to the Blood Eagle by your enemies; after which, you will be drained of your magic and dumped in St. Mungos…if you survive. I'm not picky about that last part, but we'll see."
She didn't wait to hear any pleas; conjuring a table just low enough for her to work on, and guiding Umbridge to rest on it face down. There was actually a hole where the woman's face would be, and manacles to bind her wrists and ankles. There was even a shallow indent where the woman's body was, so if she wiggled, she didn't move from the spot she'd been placed on. Granted, Umbridge was still shouting a slew of insults, but those were easily cut off. She then next conjured the various trays and tools she would need for the job, as well as casting a vanishing charm on the top half of the back of Umbridge's robes, before turning back to her friends.
"This is the last chance for an out that any of you are going to get." She warned them. None of them budged; not even Snape. "Very well. We'll start with a mild numbing spell along her spine. We're going to start cutting there, and then peel back the layers needed till we can crack her ribs open."
She was already demonstrating where they would be cutting even as she applied the numbing spell.
"Why numb her spine?" Draco wondered. Umbridge's whimpering went unacknowledged.
"Every living thing has a pain threshold. For humans, we tend to be able to block out certain amounts of pain through various means; such as immersing one's mind in a memory, or going into a meditative state. It's not perfect, and it can be overcome, but it is a tool we have. Also, if the pain becomes too much, we can simply pass out, though we don't get to choose when that is." Hera began to explain, even as she ran a finger above the spine, making the beginning incision with magic. "I've numbed the wider area because I don't want to have to keep casting reinnervate on her. I mean, I will, but this cuts down on how often I'll have to cast."
"Gloves and gowns? Masks? Hair caps?" Snape inquired, looking at some of the items on the floating trays. "What is this? A hospital?"
Hera pinned him with a look, and countered. "Look me in the eye and tell me you want any part of that woman on your body."
He was getting suited up before the others could blink, and soon enough they all followed after him. Once everyone was suited up, Hera guided them all through the process like it was a meeting with the D.A. With the beginning incision already made, it was quick work for Hera to begin peeling back the layers as she went. She was thorough with detailed instructions on things, like wound care and infection prevention, as she cut through flesh. Oddly enough, Luna and Hermione were the ones asking questions, while Draco and Ron looked varying shades of green; Fred and George looked resolute.
Umbridge alternated between ragged breaths, whimpering, crying, and screaming. Though Hera had numbed the worst of the pain, if only so that the woman would take longer to reach the pain threshold, she was not shielded from all of it. Hera made sure to break and spread each rib meticulously, though she used magic for most of it, and not an axe as was traditional. Snape was stone-faced through it all, which she was glad for; if she went too far, he'd be able to pull her back from it. By the time this was all done, Umbridge's internal organs were on full display.
"Bloody hell, I think I'm going to be sick." Ron groaned.
"Same." Draco agreed, grimacing when he nodded.
"I did try warning you, just so you're aware." Hera reminded them, before gesturing to Fred "Now for the best part. Pass me the salt, would you?"
"I'm still trying to figure out how you're okay with this." Draco admitted, though it was a bit distractedly as he was morbidly fascinated with how the salt reacted to the exposed muscle and bone. "I heard the more detailed account of your own torture, if you recall."
"In one form or another, I have been both the tortured and the torturer, Draco." Hera pointed out. "It sort of came with the territory of being a prince of a warrior culture. Someone had to do the 'dirty' business of extracting information. Of course, that's not something an honest warrior would do, but who I had been in that last life? He was not always good or kind then, more pragmatic than anything else. If it got him closer to his goal, there was nothing he wouldn't have done; that includes betrayal – or at least the appearance of, and he was a remarkable actor, after all – lying, stealing, cheating, and any trick up to and including faking his own death."
Throughout the explanation she gave, Hera busied herself with gently prying the lungs out of Umbridge's body and rested them inside the 'wings' the ribs made.
"And that, my friends, is how you properly perform a Blood Eagle." Hera nodded decisively, before looking under the table to see Umbridge's gasping face. "Oh, look at that, she is still alive."
"…Is it wrong that I find this fascinating?" Hermione wondered, eyes wide as she absorbed it all.
"Wrong? No. You wouldn't just torture some random person off the street, after all. From an academic perspective, what we're learning about the anatomy of the human body alone is quite fascinating." Luna assured her. "Is it strange, however? Perhaps. Don't worry though, the Addams' are all about the unconventional. They'll welcome you with open arms. I'm sure of it."
"What do we do now?" George asked, having been silent for most of this.
"Now we seal her back up and ship her off to St. Mungos, right after I strip her of all of her magic and leave her with nothing but the magic she forced others to carve into themselves." Hera shrugged. At this, Umbridge began to gasp more. "Would you like me to show you your heart next? I will if you don't shut it."
The woman whimpered and went still.
"I don't think I'm ever going to get her screams out of my head." Ron admitted, even as Hera and Snape began cleaning and reversing the damage done to Umbridge. The others all nodded in agreement.
"Good. It means it bothers you. It tells me you are a good man, Ronald Weasley; that though you all wanted her to suffer, none of you like suffering for its own sake." Hera stated, looking over her shoulder at him. "Pray that such a thing will always bother you, no matter how many times it happens, or even if it never does again. Pray. Because the day that suffering for its own sake no longer bothers you is the day you are no longer a good man, and it is very difficult to come back from that point. I should know."
When she looked back to her work, she realized her hands were shaking, but Snape stopped her from doing anything else by placing his hand over her own.
"You did good." He stated, keeping his voice low. "You let them see what they needed to, while also keeping your composure. More importantly, you kept this woman alive against your own wishes. That can't have been easy. Let me seal the wound. You can remove her magic to be cleansed then."
"My hands…" Hera wondered. "I don't understand…why?"
"Because it still bothers you." Snape replied easily. He didn't appear to be bothered, something she wondered about; something he quickly picked up on, though his hands were steady. "While it does still bother me as well, your last life and I have that in common; pragmatism, that is."
While she could believe that, something seemed to be missing to that explanation.
"Oh, alright." Snape huffed. "I also have a box in my mind that I place such unsavoury memories as Death Eater raids into, and then I close the box. It's labelled 'do not open' for a reason."
"Wouldn't you have to open it to put new things into it?" She pointed out.
"Not if you don't look at it." He replied, stubbornly holding to it, giving her a side glare. "It's a mind box, Potter. Those don't open unless you go poking at them, and I don't."
"Alright, alright, have your mind boxes." Hera gave a shaky laugh as she teased. "That doesn't sound like an unhealthy coping mechanism at all."
"Glad we could have this talk." Snape responded almost immediately, much to the shaky amusement of everyone else.
Rowan Hawks was about to head home for some well deserved rest, when the emergency alarms sounded; a disturbance in the wards. By the time he got to where the breach was, the alarms had ceased. The Senior Undersecretary for the Minister of Magic and recent High Inquisitor and Headmistress of Hogwarts was gasping for air in the middle of the floor. The back of her robes had been carefully cut away to reveal from the tail bone up, and both she and the robes were covered in blood; a quick scan told him it was her own. She was quickly admitted to the hospital, but was unable to tell them what was wrong.
She kept crying 'My lungs! They're not inside!'. Further scans revealed that some major healing had happened to her ribs as well as her internal organs, and a higher salt content along her lungs; the tell tale signs of a magically performed and reversed Blood Eagle. The scans also revealed that while she had magic, it was not her own. Dolores Umbridge seemed to have no magic her own, only the dark magic that came from words carved into her flesh. Rowan wasn't sure they could help her, as even if they were able to remove the dark magic from her body, she would have less innate magic than a muggle.
When he explained this, Umbridge became hysterical, and blamed Lady Potter. Granted, she'd used wildly vulgar phrasing for that, but still. It seemed to have triggered a spell on the woman, so maybe there was some merit to the accusation. Dolores Umbridge began spewing a barrage of things, things he quickly began to realize were crimes that she had committed. He set about having someone to witness her confessions so that they could be stored in memory vials, before making up the cot in his office; as it seemed he would be needed sooner rather than later to deal with the headache that would come from this.