Beta'd by Haija
The air was knocked out of his lungs with a sharp gasp as his back collided with the hard, black-tiled wall. Stars briefly swam in his vision as he slumped to the floor while he struggled to breath. Something like a soft buzzing filled his limbs as if he'd been leaning on them funny for too long and the sensation kept him grounded for longer than the twenty-seven-year-old Auror would have liked.
Harry Potter felt as though he'd been hit by a train running at top speed, and then some.
Shaking his head, an action that he instantly regretted, had a groan escaping his parched lips. Despite the discomfort he was able to finally swallow a gulp of stale air, it was old and musty and all kinds of disgusting, but it was air and his lungs desperately screamed for it. As his breathing steadied, he chose to ignore the fact the air shouldn't taste as though he'd gone tomb raiding with Bill and chose to focus on the fact he probably had a concussion and should work on not being on the floor if possible. One breath, two breaths, three deep breaths later and he felt that enough of the fog in his mind had cleared to take stock of his situation. "Davis, you okay?" he asked into the dimly lit, dust filled room...
Wait?
Green eyes scanned the Hall of Time of the British Ministry of Magic to find the room had seen better days. Well he tried to scan it, though really what he was seeing could only be described as the 'former' Hall of Time considering what he saw. It was honestly an utter wreck. A far cry from the sterile work environment it had been not five minutes earlier. Where there had been various work benches covering in projects and filing cabinets stuffed with parchment had now been replaced with the same but decayed and dilapidated and covered in a layer of dust so thick it might well fill a sand pit. "Davis?" Harry called again into the room, looking for the woman but he saw no sign of his partner. As he continued to look, one thing he did spot was his holly wand laying on the floor about ten feet away amongst the wooden rubble of what used to be a cabinet that had housed the Department of Mysteries time turners. Between him and it the floor was even more dust and grime that was honestly a little concerning.
'What are the Elves even being paid for?' he couldn't help but wonder as he attempted to get up from the floor using the wall for support.
Once back up on two legs, the Auror patted down his crimson robes, noting nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Patches of his outer robe seemed blackened with soot, but he seemed to be in as many pieces as he had been when he came down here. Slipping his grey-gloved hands, and he was very glad to note his left arm prosthetic still felt fully functional and firmly attached to its port, into his pockets revealed none of them seemed to be damaged. Although a full overview of both himself and his equipment would need to be taken later. With that concern dealt with, Harry turned to the next pressing matter.
Davis wasn't here, and that concerned him.
"Davis!" He tried a third time, calling into the hall around him but there was no visible sign of the red robes with lime-green trim or dark brown hair of his Field-healer partner. The realisation that she was missing had his still somewhat clouded mind finally kick into gear. He tried to remember what had just happened, they had come down to this Merlin-forsaken department chasing a lead when the earth shook. It had actually shook a few times before the cabinet full of time turner s began to glow an ominous colour the Auror had come to learn meant enchantment failure. Knowing what was to come, Harry had tried to protect Tracey from the worst of it, throwing himself and a quickly cast shield between his new partner and the blast that had him colliding with the wall.
Now that all seemed normal, save for the exploding time turners.
What wasn't was the apparent fall out of said explosion, nor the fact Tracey was now missing in action.
Harry Potter knew explosions. He understood them quite intimately if he was being honest, he got caught up in enough of them during his work, so he knew something wasn't quite right here. Sure, there's dust and debris as a result of a blast but since he was closer to the blast than Auror Davis Harry knew that if he was fine, she should have been too. Explosions don't just erase people. What was also out of place was that the room didn't look like the victim of a fresh explosion...
With a quick role of his shoulders, It would probably be worth giving the prosthetic a once over later, he thought, he went to collect his wand. The length of holly warmed noticeably in his grasp as the still flesh and blood figures of his right hand curled around it. Something about that felt off. Maybe it was the same sort of 'off' the rest of the room had? He was use to picking up his wand, it never left his person if he could help it, but picking it up now felt familiar in a different way. Something to put a pin in. 'Besides,' the thought started before he could stop it, 'why was his wand covered in so much dust?' he wondered idly as he brushed some of the caked detritus off of his magical focus.
A sudden sound from his right had him snapping out of his train of thought, his wand instantly aimed towards the sound on pure instinct. Initially, Harry thought it might be a rat considering it sounded like something shuffling through tin cans, but then he remembered that he was in the Ministry of Magic. This place didn't get rats, well, not the regular kind anyway, politicians didn't really count. It could have been one of the many House Elves that the Magical Government had under its employ, but they didn't really make any noise while working and prided themselves at going about unseen. Whatever it had been the disturbance came from beyond the Hall of Time, back towards the entrance. He'd briefly looked that way when he'd started to regain his baring's but only now did he realise the door that connected this hall to the network of hallways that made up the 'DoM' and Ministry beyond was open.
The doors here were never just 'open'.
It was a part of orientation into the Aurors to know a little of how each of the other departments worked and Harry knew part of the security of the Department of Mysteries was its system of automatically closing doors. While a cabinet of Time Turners exploding might have messed with the door, that wasn't the only thing that had Harry concerned. What was worse was that the hallway just beyond the black wooden door appeared to be a void of total darkness.
This place wasn't meant to be like that either...
A quick, silently cast detection spell didn't highlight anything was amiss within radius of about thirty feet of him, but in places of high ambient magic Harry had learnt not to fully trust detection charms so he cast another six for good measure. Even though all seven detection spells didn't highlight anything, the complete lack of anything being detected was itself concerning. Still, Unspeakable's or not, Civilians or not, Hostiles or not, his partner was missing and he had to find her. The fact the Hall of Time did look like a bomb had gone off, the fact the air didn't have that ozone and brimstone tang that followed most magical explosions give off and how settled everything looked was just adding to the growing list of red flags. He needed to find Tracey, the clean up could be left for the Unspeakables to deal with when they got their grey-robed asses down here. Although, to save a meeting with Robards, it would probably be a good idea to flag the Unspeakables instead of leaving them to find it... With a sigh of a man who would much rather be doing something else, which really he was, he needed to find his partner, he tried to remember which was the most senior Unspeakable that should be on at the moment, thought of a positive memory and whispered;
"Expecto Patronum."
A small smile tugged at the Aurors weathered face as a ghostly blue-white stag erupted from the tip of his wand. Its presence filling the dilapidated room with an other worldly warmth and a feeling of hope and joy that seemed to chase away the darkness. As though nothing could be wrong with the world... except as the magical protector pranced around the room something did suddenly feel wrong with the world. Or, more accurately, it felt as though the charm was chasing something dark from the room that Harry couldn't see.
He frowned at the feeling.
Whatever it was the ethereal stag was forcing away, Harry could still feel... whatever it was at the edge of the spell. He hadn't noticed it originally but now it was being forced away from him he could certainly feel its absence. It felt wrong, angry even, or perhaps corrupted? Harry didn't know. He didn't think he wanted to know either but if it was always present when the charm wasn't it was probably something he'd need to look into later. It was just something else to report, regardless. "Croaker, it's Potter, your little time-traveling-trinkets all exploded in that tremor over me and Auror Davis. You might want to get someone down here to look into this..." Harry spoke into the ethereal stag, "While I have you, Auror Davis is also missing. Have you seen her?" he added to the end.
The guardian gave a slight bow before looking around in search of something. Once it seemed to have found what it was looking for it proceeded to prance through a near by wall. It was all business as usual really, the most normal today had been. Well until it was until it wasn't. As the ghostly glow of the Patronus vanished beyond the wall, the corrupted feeling aura that had been pushed aside by the guardian flooded back into the room like a tidal wave of sickness that almost knocked Harry back onto his ass as it flooded him with nausea.
It wouldn't have been so bad, if the invisible miasma had only brought with it the nausea. As the corrupted feeling settled back into the room, with it came a sudden feeling that his flesh was on fire and for his lunch to exit his stomach via his mouth. Harry fought to stay up right, swaying as vertigo took hold, while he let out a series of ragged coughs that sounded, and felt, as though his lungs wanted to be anywhere but inside his chest. Each cough made the Auror feel like he was going to be sick until a large mass of blood and mucus and whatever was left of his lunch was finally exercised from him. "The fuck?" He wheezed weakly, barely still standing as whatever brought on the sudden bought of sickness began to slowly subside. A few more wheezing coughs, thankfully not as painful or bloody as the first few, later and he started feeling better. Although, 'better' here was subjective. Though he'd not checked his own status earlier when he'd gotten up, though he was sure he probably had a concussion, he now felt far worse. It felt as if he'd spent too much time near a Dementor, his flesh hand became clammy and it was suddenly far too cold.
"Note to self, do not use a Patronus again any time soon," he mused as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. The crimson of the robes hiding the crimson of his blood. "-And find a Healer asap." He tacked on as another series of coughs wrought themselves from him.
Glancing towards the wall that his Stag Patronus had vanished through had Harry seriously wonder what the hell was going on. He was tempted to make that higher on his priority list but first to find Tracey, then find a healer (which objective one technically solved as well) and then he could try and figure out what was going on. Taking a deep breath that burned his throat, Harry refocused on the open doorway to darkness. After what had just happened, the darkened hallway seemed suddenly far more sinister.
Why was it so dark?
A quick glance behind, towards the opposite end of the hall, showed that the door that end was slightly ajar as well. That door led on into what Harry knew to be the Hall of Prophecies. While that room being dark wasn't that surprising, it was often kept dark unless in use, but even its darkness felt as malign as the hallway he was about to enter. As if there was something within the void.
Watching.
==0==
The hallway remained in obscurity for what felt longer than a few meagre seconds; the lights murmuring as they ignited moments after the Auror stepped over the threshold of the Hall of Time. While not as strong as normal, the enchanted light did illuminate the hall enough to render his light charm useless. 'Small mercies,' Harry thought. The idea of walking through the Department of Mysteries, and maybe the rest of the Ministry, with nothing but a light charm when things were clearly wrong was not something Harry wanted to do.
Glancing around the narrow hallway, it was maybe only about thirty foot long with two other doors, one about halfway and another the other end. It looked almost the same as the Hall of Time. Just without the cabinet of exploded Time Turners. That's to say caked in dust and filth as if it hadn't been cleaned in a while. Unlike the Hall he had just left though, this hallway had something promising. Kneeling down, Harry saw a series of boot prints in the dust leading away from the Hall. A tracking charm was apparently pointless though as it suggested the trackway had been here for a month. Considering the amount of dust, that might make sense, but things weren't adding up. He and Davis had just walked through here...
Shaking his head, and happy to feel only slightly disorientated by the action instead as if he was going to fall over, Harry stood back up and continued down the hallway.
As he approached the door halfway through the hallway, he slowed his pace to a halt just before its frame. The boot prints on the floor didn't lead through this door, but it never hurt to check. Casting a series of detection spells over the door suggested it was open, the security charms weren't present and that there shouldn't be anything on the other side. When those came back clear, Harry slowly eased the door to peer within.
Just like the hallway, as he peered inside the room he was met with total darkness for a few seconds before the lights sputtered to life. It was a little concerning that none of the lights where on as standard but with the lights now active, it revealed the room to house a small storage cupboard with glass doors which shelved small wooden crates that were covered in runes that looked iridescent even under the low light. The Auror didn't completely recognise the runic schemes that covered each of the crates, but the way the light reflected from them caught his eye. Curiosity tempted him to rummage through the chests, to see what the Unspeakables had squirreled away down here, but a combination of the unfamiliar rune work and the knowledge that the Unspeakables would be less than pleased with his rummaging stayed his hand. While rummaging through a Dark Wizard's lair for interesting things wasn't always questioned, this certainly would be. Choosing that not being dragged before Robards for an avoidable meeting (read: scolding) was the better part of kleptomania, Harry opted to move on. Closing the door with a soft click, Harry carried on towards the exit.
With each step through the almost snow-like dust Harry felt as though his footsteps were growing louder. The crunch-shuffle of the thick, snow-like concoction of grime and dust beneath his boots felt louder than it should've as it reverberated through his skull like a death knell, working with his hammering heart, building up like a trepidatious chant with each step down the corridor. He was deep in the Ministry of Magic, but it felt like he was on assignment hunting down the next wannabe Dark Lord. The growing nerves mixed with the still present nausea from the earlier incident with the Patronus was a cocktail made in the hells that only served to make him feel worse. He didn't even know why he felt this off, it was just a door and there was no way it was just the nausea. Despite the obvious innocence of a door something in his gut had been telling him something wasn't right since he'd hit that wall and had only gotten worse since.
Now, standing in front of the last door that should, as long as the layout hadn't changed in the last half an hour, lead into the foyer of the Department of Mysteries. The damned spinning room full of doors. As expected for a door in the D.o.M, this one looked no different from the last two despite leading to the exit. Dark, solid wood with a single brass doorknob in the centre. It was normal. Or as normal as it could be considering that, after casting the same series of spells on this door as he had the last, it also didn't seem to have any of its security, but someone was on the other side.
Considering the past half-hour, the idea of seeing an Unspeakable wasn't as off-putting as it would normally be. The department may be creepy and its employees barely more than a large group of anti-social nerds with less than morally sound interests than anything he was comfortable with, but the prospect of seeing another person sounded like a good thing right about now. Even if they were just a technician working on the doors. Then he can go back to Magical Law Enforcement and figure out where Tracey had gone... and why Croaker hadn't answered his Patronus yet. Although, considering what happened to him and his Patronus earlier, the lack of response made sense.
Taking a fortifying breath that Harry wasn't entirely sure was necessary, he opened the door.
The room on the other side was in total darkness. Not surprising considering the hallway and storeroom, but this was meant to be the entrance to one of the largest departments in the British Ministry of Magic. Red flag. "Hello?" Harry called into the room to only be met with a silent void and his own minor echo. It was a dumb move, and he knew it, calling out into a darkened room, but something about this wasn't adding up in his head the more time stretched from the explosion. 'Where are you...?' he thought as his green eyes tried to pierce the inky blackness for the person he knew was in here. Second red flag. The longer the Auror gazed into the black abyss that made up the entrance to the Department of Mysteries, the longer he felt that centring himself hadn't been a mistake. Only a couple paces into the room, and with a flick of his wand, the hall became painted in the gentle yellow-white glow as his focus ignited in the gloom.
Where normally the large circular hall would be brightly lit by several wall mounted torches, the darkness that now consumed the room was a stark contrast that did little to feed the imagination. The soft glow of his charm cast haunting shadows that danced upon the barely visible walls. Despite the darkness and the ominous shadows, that wasn't the worst of it. No, that spot belonged solely to the stench that hung in the air like a noose around his lungs that grew fouler the further he walked into the room. After three paces, a quiet hum, barely audible but in the quiet might as well have been the roar of an engine, vibrated through the walls and, with a barely noticeable shudder, the rooms sconces wheezed to life. The eery flames they housed refused to take initially, taking ten painful seconds before they relented to illuminate the hall.
Harry's face twisted into a grimace, really wishing they hadn't.
Lying on the floor at the base of one of the doors, looking as if they had collapsed trying to claw their way through it, was the grey-robed form of an Unspeakable. Worse, they weren't alone. Littering the hall like a field of daisies creeping on red dahlias were the bodies of another six Unspeakables. Their appearance and the deep rust-brown stains that surrounded them made the rancid smell even more clear, it was a stench the Auror knew well but the rotting flesh, a banquet for the maggots confirmed it. Rot and decay where a common part of his job, one that turned many a green-wixen away from the profession. The now lit room also signalled another problem. As Harry observed the chamber filled with seven corpses who had definitely been here a long time, if the smell was any indication, then where was the person who owned the life-sign he'd detected?
This wasn't making any clear sense, but really when had his life ever made any?
'Well, no, that wasn't entirely true,' Harry thought to himself as his eyes trailed over the bodies of the seven dead Unspeakables. 'Things were making sense, but not the right sort of sense...' he thought as the realisation that maybe explosions that involved Arcane devices linked to time-travel had some rather adverse effects... Harry Potter only prayed that his gut was wrong in this, he didn't want to consider what the consequences of it being right would allude. Shaking his head and dispelling the light charm, Harry made towards the first body. Unspeakables don't just drop dead, and many of these ones certainly didn't if the stains on both the floor and some of their robes where anything to go by. No, it was obvious from the onset that many of these people were killed. The important question was why?
And where was Davis in all this?
The explosion, the missing partner, rooms and hallways in the bowls of the Ministry lacking any lights and security and now a room of dead Unspeakables in a room where there should be at least someone alive. No, this reeked of more trouble than the stench of decay clawing at his throat. Some would argue that he was wasting time. That he should ignore the bodies and focus on finding Tracey. There weren't any bodies here with the red robes of an Auror, yet alone ones with the lime-green trim of a field-healer. He should move one and make it someone else's problem.
But he couldn't.
Harry Potter was an Auror, he helped people, and he couldn't leave without trying to help figure out what could do this to a room filled with seven of some of the Ministry's best trained people. So it was with a resigned breath, which he immediately regretted taking as he inhaled more of the filth, that Harry walked with determination to the nearest body after casting a bubble-head charm on himself.
Taking hungry gulps on the magically purified air, Harry got to work.
This Unspeakable was lying face down on the floor with their arms splayed wide, the hood of their tattered robes was pulled up covering their features from view. Despite the covering, the deep rust-red staining of the hood and what looked to be a dried puddle of ichor around the head suggested heavily how this individual expired. Kneeling besides the corpse, and not wishing to destroy the scene any more than his presence already had, Harry ran his wand over the decaying sack of cloth-bound putrid flesh and bones muttering a diagnosis spell as he went. As the spell ran its course, and now he was closer to the floor, it was clear that the build-up of grime in here was different to both the Hallway and Hall of Time. It had been barely noticeable when he had entered, while still thick with age, this hall had the detritus distributed oddly. As if it had been pushed aside before more had settled on top.
It had been disturbed.
The Aurors eyes flicked from the floor to the body he was examining, feeling the magic through him and his wand, he once more felt a sense of unease. It would take a lot of skill to take down an Unspeakable and while Harry was sure one-on-one, he could manage it okay, against seven he knew it wouldn't work out in his favour. Tracey was a different matter. She was good. She was very good. But there was a reason she went into the Healer business. She could stomach the brutality that often came with their line of work, but she wasn't big on causing it on other people. He hadn't been partnered with Tracey Davis long, but he had known her for longer than when they had been assigned together at the start of the week. It was after a specifically nasty case that she had taught him this spell while he was bound to the hospital wing of M.L.E and it was hard not to worry about the fate of the brunette considering what he had seen since the explosion.
When the charm had run its course, Harry's frown deepened. It had come back with a clear open-and-shut conclusion that the Unspeakable was not only dead but had been for a while. A few months give-or-take. They had died from a piercing hex that had caught their neck meaning that, under this hood, the poor sod's head was barely attached to the rest of them. Although, that wasn't all that surprising considering the dried pool of blood. The more concerning thing though was the fact that the scan showed that this Unspeakable had been suffering from some sort of ... illness? While Harry wasn't a healer by any stretch of the imagination, after so many years chasing after the scum of the Magical world he had learnt to recognise enough illnesses and conditions where the diagnosis charm would be able to tell him with a good degree of accuracy what someone may have. He had no idea what this person had been suffering from.
Whatever it was, it wasn't pretty.
Carefully getting to his feet, he moved to another of the bodies trying to avoid disturbing the room too much and ran the spell again. This grey-robed body was laying on their back, a large dark red-brown stain across their chest from an obvious gash. Their hood falling away just enough for Harry to observe a little of the face while his scan ran. Rotten, pale flesh hung loosely from their slack-jawed visage that occasionally pulsed as magots worked to rend all they could from the deceased. Strangely, while decaying, the skin had an almost burnt quality to it. Before he could ponder it further, the diagnosis had run its course. The results had come back similar to the first victim, though the cause had changed. Subject had been deceased for several months' worth of time due to deep lacerations to the chest that had punctured a few vital organs. Glancing between the wound and the rest of the room, Harry began trying to piece together what could have happened. While still lacking key details, it was clear that whoever had come through here was well trained. Though something that did strike him as odd was that both Unspeakables so far had been suffering from the same odd ailment.
How did that play into things? Was it just a coincidence or was there more to it?
Either way, Harry sent a silent thanks to Merlin, and Magic in general, for the advent of Bubble-Head charms, and prayed whatever this was, wasn't contagious.
"What happened here?" Harry couldn't help wondering aloud. The conclusions gained from just these two examinations where not painting a positive picture and while a small part wanted to give in to the small voice urging him to move on, he wouldn't, couldn't indulge it. These two had been killed while they were suffering from similar symptoms to an illness that Harry didn't recognise. While he may not recognise the illness, and without the aid of a trained Healer he probably wouldn't, something about the symptoms was gnawing at him as if he should know them. It was at the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn't place it.
"Well, thrice the charm..." The Auror muttered before moving onto the next corpse, for this one was certainly a corpse with its head hanging back at an unnatural angle. Other than the blatantly broken neck, this one lay in a way that would suggest it had been flung backwards, and while he couldn't confirm the series of events that lead to this individual's current location and demise, the diagnostic did confirm severe blunt-force trauma to the lower head and neck was at least what killed them.
And again, the same symptoms.
Severe cell degradation and burns, the breakdown of connective tissues, loss of hair and major dehydration. Harry was certain these people probably suffered with more but as they had expired it was impossible to tell. While some of this was likely due to the months' worth of rot, the charm confirmed a lot of that was pre-mortem. Whatever these people had been suffering with wasn't pleasant and the fact they all seemed to have it was a problem. Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence but three's a pattern.
If all the people in here suffered with this, what was the rest of the Ministry like?
The explosion he'd been caught in was bad, but not something he wasn't used to, explosions were a common part of his job after all. Darkened halls and rooms also were nothing new, but the Ministry didn't do dark rooms. The place was built on a leyline intersection, it didn't need to turn the lights off even without the higher-level employees being partially bound to the wards to ensure their powering. Now a room full of dead Unspeakable, that had been in the condition for a while, in one of the deepest parts of Ministry was a clear sign that not only was something wrong but that the Ministry outside this hall was 100% at least in the same, if not worse, state.
Including Magical Law Enforcement.
The thought made him grimace. Harry was still pondering his next steps, lost in thought, when a sound yanked him from his thoughts. It was a low, guttural sound somewhere between a moan and a snarl like some sot of animal or... the thought of what else it could be had Harry moving like a whirlwind of crimson. He was up, wand aimed at the source of the sound in the blink of an eye while a phantom ache began to throb in the space where his left forearm used to be.
The sight before him had the colour draining from his face.
Its face pale, rotting and misshapen flesh hanging like curtains under a tattered hood. A patch of skin on its cheek was missing, revealing shredded muscle and bone and teeth underneath it all. Just under its hood, glassy, almost milky eyes glared at him like daggers from sunken sockets. The name of the creature was one Harry knew all too well.
"Inferius..."
The creatures still gave him nightmares, both from eleven years after that fateful night in a cave by the sea and from the case two years ago that cost him his arm. Seeing an Unspeakable turned into one was not a sight Harry had expected to see when he came into work this morning. Or ever, for that matter. What had once been a person was now nothing more than an undead puppet to some unseen dark master and the sight of the creature had almost all rational thought evaporate from his mind like a puddle on a hot midsummer's day.
Without thinking, Harry's wand was moving as if possessed. Arcane flame spat from the wooden foci in quick bursts, all with the intent to rend the abomination to ashes. While most of the flickering flames struck true, the fact it was barely affected by them drew Harry up short. But right now, he didn't care. All thoughts as to how and why regarding the creature were pushed aside for later, all there was now was the need to purge the dark stain before him.
The creature was not idle while Harry tried to burn it. With a grace unbecoming of a reanimated puppet, the thing tried to avoid the flames that flew towards it by hurling itself towards its attacker with an inhuman snarl. Rolling to the side, missing its long nails by inches, Harry sprung back to his feet with practiced easy before continuing his flaming assault. The two continued to dance about the room between bodies, the Inferius trying to claw and bite at the Auror as it flung itself at him while said Auror refused to let it land anything more than a glancing hit. It took longer than Harry would admit before he realised this Inferius was weird, different. His flames where not affecting it like they should. With that in mind, he changed tactics. Instead of simple, silently cast flame spells, he instead pointed his wand at the things feet just as it was about to hurl itself once more and muttered.
"Colloshoo!"
The hex's effect was immediate. As the undead lurched forward, instead of going temporarily airborne, its face instead struck the floor with a sickening crunch as the things nose collided with the hard ground. It didn't seem too concerned though with this turn of events as it kept trying to claw its way along the floor towards him. While effective, he realised the stickfast hex wouldn't keep it for long as the creature turned on its old and worn shoes.
It was smart. Smarter than any Inferius that he'd ever seen before.
Not wasting anymore time, Harry fired a knockback jinx at its head while the thing clawed at its own feet. Its head snapped to the side with a sickening crack before its hole body went limp. As the thing dropped dead, Harry released a shuddering breath as he quickly ran a revealing charm to ensure he was alone. The room was empty of any other people. With that sorted, he moved towards the now double-dead Unspeakable. Kneeling down next to the corpse, he ran the diagnostic charm for the 4th time today. Though unlike the past few times, this time Harry was looking for one set of details. As the charm finished analysing the body, the Auror couldn't help the dark chuckle at the results. Subject died to blunt-force trauma, 'Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,' suffered from several fractured bones and, most important, was showing symptoms as the last three Unspeakables.
Bingo.
With the diagnosis completed, even after observing this one individual, Harry thought he had a pretty good idea what the odd illness was. But at the same it the idea was at odds with what he saw. Whatever these people were suffering from, the Auror was sure it made them into these creatures, but the more he looked at them the less certain he was they were Inferni. While it had many of the markers of the undead puppets, enough was different to make him question it. Harry had been dealing with things like Inferni since he was sixteen and unfortunately grew to know a fair bit about the abominations. With the clarity of no longer being under attack, Harry had the chance to look at it. Really look. Its epidermis was unlike that of an Inferi's smooth and atrophied complexion, the decayed flesh looked as if it was boiled and abruptly frozen, bubbling fat kept set, fusing with charred flesh. The cartilage that made its nose was almost fully eroded, granting perfect view of the nasal cavity laden with tumours that secreted a foul, yellow pus. It's eyes, which Harry originally assumed were the glazed and milky whites associated with Inferi, are instead crazed, and pained, and spun as if by a mischievous child so that the iris could only be seen peeking out from behind wide sockets, no eyelids to hide behind as they were charred to the point where only flaps of skin are tethered by slivers of transparent flesh. The sight caused bile to rush up Harry's throat and his stomach to churn with an inexplicable grief.
No, while wild and crazed, this had still been a person… or at least something akin to one.
And wasn't that concerning? The thought sent a shiver down his spine, especially if there was more of these... people beyond the D.o.M. Rubbing the stump of where his left arm connected to the prosthetic, Harry rose to his feet. "Fucking October..." he grumbled, quiet voice muffled even further by the bubble surrounding his nose and mouth. Turning tightly in the centre of the room, Harry noted which door he had come through, its dark-wood door still wide open, and wondered briefly which door led out into the Ministry proper.
He'd not even left the D.o.M yet and something in his gut was telling him his day was about to get longer and even shittier than it had been. It wasn't even over yet and he'd already been blown up once and attacked by a discount-inferni with in the space of a morning. With a deep, filtered breath Harry pointed his wand at the one of the doors and tried for a miracle that this enchantment still worked.
"Exit." He stated clearly into the room, letting magic run through his wand in the vague hope that the right door would open.
It seemed that something might have been taking pity upon the Wizard as, with a rather violent shudder of all the still closed doors, one of the portals opened slightly with a click. With a faint smile Harry opened the door slowly with his wand raised, only for the small smile slipping from his lips as fast as it had formed at what greeted him.
"Well, once more unto the breach." He muttered before his wand ignited with a gentle Lumos and he stepped out of the Department of Mysteries and back into darkness.
Author Notes:
The line "Choosing that not being dragged before Robards for an avoidable meeting (read: scolding) was the better part of kleptomania" is based upon the saying 'Discretion is the better part of valour' which is from Shakespeare's 'King Henry IV'. I didn't know that until my Beta pointed out they didn't know the saying and I looked it up to let them know and we both agreed this note would be helpful.
