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She was a mess, blood stained her face, and her jaw hung loose. Her hair swung in matted clumps of blood and follicles as her head moved. She now looked as much a redhead as the Weasleys. Her robes had been cut short around her arms and legs to allow her better movement and were covered in different colored viscera. One of her forearms twitched as blood flowed slowly from words carved into it. Mudblood. The illness had opened up her cursed injury making it much more ghastly than it should have. Even Rookwood felt nauseous looking at it.
"Granger has been neglecting to keep her appearance up with the cleaning charm," Flitwick said out of the side of his mouth.
"Waste of energy," Hermione scoffed. How she scoffed with a broken jaw was unclear.
"There is no shame in dying fabulous, my dear," Flitwick said gently. "And you are scaring the children."
"I don't need to go near the younger students," Hermione excused. "They have Neville, Luna, and Ginny looking after them."
Voldemort interrupted them with an impatient noise.
"Granger," he said in a silky tone. "what do you know of this sickness and how to counteract it?"
She looked at Voldemort, but her eyes didn't raise, so she was left staring at his chest. Hermione talked to him like this.
"I discovered that the illness itself is virtually indestructible. No amount of force or fire can destroy it. The vanishing charm works, but the disease is ever present. You can't vanish all the air in the castle."
She pulled a small vial of a purple substance from inside her robes.
"I have however concocted a serum that completely nullifies the effects," she began.
"Accio vial," Voldemort hissed, summoning the vial to his hand.
Flitwick looked furious as Hermione watched with total apathy.
He held out his wand coolly at the two and handed the drink to Rookwood.
"Drink. Not all of it," he commanded.
"Yes, my lord! Thank you ever so much!" The death eater praised. "I have been feeling the symptoms ever since we entered the castle."
He put the vial to his lips and gulped down around half of it.
Immediately, the glass shattered against the floor as his numb fingers released it. Accompanying the crash, a loud thunk sounded far behind him and around the corner. He clutched his stomach and his face twisted with agony. Augustus Rookwood fell to his knees and then collapsed onto his side.
He spasmed.
Once.
Twice.
Then he lay still.
Voldemort watched with a detached air as a trickle of blood flowed from his lips.
Then a flood of multicolored viscera poured from his face and his body deflated completely to the point that his skeleton was fully visible beneath the skin.
"That's a shame," Hermione sighed as she set fire to the remains. "I suppose Rookwood will have to do."
Another moment later, she vanished what was left.
"Accio chest," she intoned, summoning the stone box of ashes to her. "Did you think I didn't notice this poking out from behind the corner? Let's take a look shall we?"
She cast a series of detection spells on the box.
"You just lost me a valuable servant," Voldemort scowled. "you have better repay the cost in information."
"We'll get there," Hermione said distractedly observing the box's runes.
"Enough of this!" The dark lord shouted. "Give me the information you have about this cursed sickness immediately!"
Hermione scowled in return but didn't answer him right away. Instead, she unsteadily pulled a book from her robes.
"I've been studying myths and legends about ancient curses," Hermione explained, showing them the title.
"Magical Maladies of the Darkest Sort," Flitwick read aloud.
"I found a reference to a body-liquifying illness of magical origin and followed the connections to a myth from the Nordic countries of the Sixth Century. An unusually strong muggle, he might have been an unrealized muggleborn or a half-giant, named Beowulf fought against something called the Grendel. The Grendel was a half-troll and apparently, the union that caused his birth created another thing just as terrible. A disease that traveled to every place that the Grendel attacked. When he wasn't raiding some poor settlement, he lived in a dark forest."
Hermione pulled out some parchments and let them fall to the ground, where they lay open. "I cross-examined several maps and geographical information from that time and that was a dementor-ridden forest, they were the only things that couldn't catch the disease that the Grendel carried. The Grendel was immune to muggle weapons, so Beowulf tore him apart with his bare hands. However, despite this, Beowulf never caught the sickness. It was said that after the event, a dark wizard tried raising the Grendel from death and died in the process. I searched for more texts on plagues this time and discovered a string of villages dying one after the other in muggle and wizarding Europe. The last thing ever recorded about the Grendel was a story from King Arthur's court where a rumor circled that he had slain a mighty beast with the help of a Fae creature."
Flitwick and, surprisingly, Voldemort were watching her with rapt attention. The Dark Lord knew not to disregard ancient sources of history and knowledge. It was the source of some of his greatest powers after all.
"There was also a legend of a monster at the time," Hermione continued. "A monster that would not die. It was rumored that King Arthur's knights finally defeated it with a powerful sword of fire gifted presumably by the same fae that aided Arthur in defeating it in the first place. The one also known as the Lady of the Lake."
Voldemort had to admire the mudblood's tenacity and drive. It reminded him of the efforts he went through to learn every detail of the Horcrux ritual.
"There, the legend goes cold," she said. "But I did find a text speaking of something being taken from the ruins of Camelot by an unknown treasure hunter. Shortly after, the Black Death hit Europe. Muggles died of blood and lung infection. But wizards suffered altogether different effects. Those that hadn't escaped and self-quarantined themselves were liquefied from the inside. At least, I think so. All that was ever discovered of the bodies was covered up by the Ministry at the time."
"Perhaps Rookwood would have been useful then, Granger. He was an unspeakable after all," Voldemort said snidely.
"No need," Hermione shook her head. "I already figured it out."
"Very well then," Voldemort sneered. "Why did the Ministry cover it up?"
She smirked knowingly and turned toward the little teacher.
"So, Professor Flitwick," Hermione said. "Here's the list of the dead I have disposed of, please add it to the overall list while I grab extra parchment."
Voldemort fumed internally even as he portrayed an aura of calm menace. How dare this mudblood disregard my presence!?
"You have but this one warning, Granger. Tell me what I wish to know, or the outcome will not be pleasant for you."
"I have my theories, but nothing concrete," Hermione explained. "You wouldn't want the mere guesses of a mudblood, would you?"
Voldemort opened his mouth to talk before shutting it suddenly and turning.
Hermione and Flitwick looked at him in confusion. She had fully expected at least some pushback while he had expected Avada Kedavra. Sure they already prepared for either of them to die any second, but why was Miss Granger practically asking for it?
Voldemort remained quiet. His silence was the result of something far more important than teaching the welp a lesson. He had felt a tickle in his throat.
"Perhaps I shall have my followers spread the disease to the muggle world," he suggested after a few moments. "Maybe then you will truly consider sharing the information that I know you are hiding from me."
Hermione suppressed a grin. Her dead eyes sparkled slightly with merriment.
"I guess I could share some," she said. "Firstly, the muggles happen to be immune to this strain, unlike the ones in the past. Symptoms might as well be that of a common cold for them. That might be why I've survived this long, being muggleborn. Secondly, that barrier? The one you walked through to get inside? It's not to stop people from getting in."
Voldemort's eyes flashed with rage. "It is to stop people from exiting!"
He slammed open the library door and marched inside. The two watched as Voldemort shattered a window with his wand and shot a beam of power at the barrier.
The foot-wide diameter of raw energy rebounded off the inside wall and into the ground, cratering it.
"The barrier is sustained by a magical artifact. It's a special kind of barrier, invented days ago by our dear Professor Snape," Hermione said sarcastically. "He died shortly after. Fortunately, he found just the perfect artifact to make it work. It's in the headmaster's office. You might want to hurry, your snake isn't looking too good."
The Dark Lord turned to see that the bubble Nagini was circling in was against the far wall, blood dripping to the floor below it, his snake motionless.
Voldemort felt the anger boiling inside of him. Had Snape lived just minutes longer, he could have sent a message to his lord, warning him.
"How unfortunate," he growled. "For you! Crucio!"
He swept his wand and blasted the muggleborn witch into the wall with the most brutal spell known to Wizard kind.
Filius Flitwick tried to stop him, but Voldemort disarmed the professor with a wandless spell and cast another vicious Crucio at Hermione.
As the muggleborn witch lay against the wall, subject to the most horrific curse, she didn't scream, didn't even flinch. That made him angrier. Instead, she made a series of awful hacking sounds from inside her throat, and he realized she was trying to laugh.
"Voldemort," Hermione said, coughing up a large gout of blood. "I suppose Flitwick didn't tell you that he and I are holding each other up? I can't feel a thing. My nerves are rather severed and I've injured myself several times because of my lack of feeling."
Voldemort clenched his teeth, restraining himself from simply killing them both.
She got back to her feet, not using her legs, but rather uprighting herself through the animation magic keeping her active. It was like watching a puppeteer lift their dummy from off the ground to a standing position.
Her jaw hung even looser than before, leaving a gap between her lips and bloodstained teeth were now visible in the dim light provided by her wand. Hermione moved unevenly as she shambled forward, though she seemed unaware of it. The witch stood in front of him at her full height. Though still shorter than he, the sight was unnerving.
"Go on now, Voldemort. You're a dead man walking without Horcruxes," she spat, a vengeful look on her face. "See what we've done. It's in the headmaster's office. I'll be continuing to learn what I can around the castle. And don't worry about me dying before you come back, seeing the look on your face when you find out and return is one of the last things keeping me going."
Flitwick remained silent as he collected his wand from the floor. A moment of silence passed and the Dark Lord swept out of the room, off in the direction of the Headmaster's office.
"I'm going to follow him," Flitwick whispered as he shuffled to the door.
"I think that's a bad idea, but there's not much left to do anyway, I'll continue here, you do as you will," Hermione nodded awkwardly. "Try not to die."
"As you say, Miss Granger," Flitwick nodded. "As you say."
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Conquest: So…now we know.
Forsooth: no, we don't
Conquest: no they don't
Forsooth: then, why did you say "now we know"?
Conquest: you need to put a comma up there.
Forsooth: alright, fixed.
Conquest: anyways, now they know…some…of..the…lore? Of our story!
Forsooth: lotta pauses there, buddy
Conquest: you're the one writing this
Forsooth: I know, I write what you say…even the pauses!
Conquest: you're never gonna get a girlfriend.
Forsooth: alright that's enough of that.
Conquest: anyways-
Forsooth: no, shut up! You've said enough. Welcome back to our story! Please read and review. Conquest says Hermione is one of his favorite characters and he's glad she's got an important role in the story, but now he's saying he's sad about how it ends for her, and now I'm yelling at him to stop spoiling everything while I tap dance. Conquest had to use the bathroom, that's why I'm detailing what happened and he's not adding anything.
Forsoothandconquest: SEE YOU NEXT TIME!